But Lt. Cdr. George McKenzie, an Australian navy advisor in Majuro, said the search is continuing for the three Marshall Islanders and one American who left Arno Atoll Friday afternoon in a 13-foot outboard engine boat headed for the capital Majuro. The two atolls are about 15 miles apart in this western Pacific nation.
A U.S. Navy C-130 aircraft that joined the search for the boat earlier in the day sighted the small boat at about 5:30 p.m. Tuesday in a vertical position, with the stern and engine underwater and the bow in the air, said McKenzie. None of the passengers was found, he said. The boat was located about 10 miles south of Arno Atoll, about 30 miles from the starting point of its journey last Friday.
The Navy aircraft that spotted the boat happened to be in Majuro refueling Monday night when the crew learned of the missing boat and volunteered to join the search, said U.S. Embassy Deputy Chief of Mission Eric Watnik Tuesday. The Navy aircraft joined a U.S. Coast Guard C-130 plane that had searched all day Monday without locating the boat, a passenger plane operated by Air Marshall Islands and half a dozen boats, including the police department’s search and rescue vessel, “Lomor.”
An intensive air and sea search effort was launched Saturday after the boat was reported missing late Friday night.
After finding the half-sunk boat Tuesday, the Coast Guard officials immediately began calculating the route the boat took from Arno based on ocean currents, as planes and vessels moved into a new phase of searching for survivors in the water, McKenzie said.
The boat’s location was marked with a buoy and two vessels dispatched from Majuro to collect it and search the immediate area for survivors. An aerial search for survivors was planned to start at first light Wednesday, said McKenzie.
A pregnant woman, an American volunteer teacher who has been working on Arno since August, an elected councilman and a man in his 20s were on the boat when it departed Bikarej Island in Arno Atoll Friday.
James Debrueys of New Orleans, Louisiana has been working at Bikarej Elementary School as a volunteer elementary teacher for the Harvard University-based WorldTeach program.
Small boats travel between Arno and Majuro atolls on a daily basis. It is believed that the boat found Tuesday evening did not carry any safety equipment such as life jackets or a radio.
Annie Himmelsteib, Director of the WorldTeach program in the Marshall Islands, said volunteer teachers working on Arno occasionally take boats to Majuro for weekend visits because the atolls are close together.
She described travel between the two atolls by small boat as normally “routine.”
