ANCHORAGE, Alaska — A fishing boat sank off Alaska’s Aleutian Islands on Sunday, leaving four crew members including the captain dead and another missing, the Coast Guard said.
Forty-two of the 47 crew members aboard the Seattle-based Alaska Ranger were rescued, but the search continued for the missing person, said Chief Petty Officer Barry Lane.
The 184-foot vessel started taking on water shortly before 3 a.m. after losing control of its rudder 120 miles west of Dutch Harbor on Unalaska Island.
The ship’s owner, the Fishing Co. of Alaska, identified those killed as the captain, Eric Peter Jacobsen; chief engineer Daniel Cook; mate David Silveira; and crewman Byron Carrillo.
The ship was carrying 145,000 gallons of diesel when it sank in deep seas, officials said, and an oil sheen covered an area of a quarter-mile by a half-mile.
The Fishing Co. of Alaska, the owner of a catcher-processor ship it managed and the ship’s captains were fined a combined $254,500 in 2006 for numerous violations, such as tampering with or destroying equipment used by industry observers and failing to provide observers a safe work area.
Two brothers from Pueblo who previously served on the Alaska Ranger said the ship has suffered from problems, from a missing anchor to a crack in the hull. Will Sterner, 28, served two contracts aboard the Ranger: one in 2005, the other in 2007. His brother, Douglas, 21, joined him in 2007.
