(Reuters) – The U.S. Coast Guard said on Monday that it had suspended its search for five people after their commercial fishing boat capsized in Alaska.
The Coast Guard received a mayday call early Sunday from the crew of the 50-foot (15 m) fishing boat Wind Walker, saying that the vessel was overturning in waters just south of Couverden Point in southeast Alaska.
The area where the boat capsized was hit by heavy snow, winds up to 60 mph (97 kph), and six-foot (1.8-m) seas on Sunday.
“We stand in sorrow and solidarity with the friends and family of the people we were not able to find over the past 24 hours,” Chief Warrant Officer James Koon, a Coast Guard search and rescue mission coordinator, said in a written statement.
The statement said the Coast Guard searched for nearly 24 hours using boats and helicopters in a hunt over more than 108 nautical square miles (371 sq km).
The Coast Guard said on Sunday that it had received information that five people were aboard the boat when it capsized.
Seven empty cold-water immersion suits and two strobe lights were located in the water in the search area, but there has been no sign of the vessel or its crew, the Coast Guard said.
(Reporting by Brad Brooks in Colorado; Editing by Sonali Paul)
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