The national police patrol vessel Lomor and two fisheries department vessels joined with a private vessel and a visiting yacht to begin searching the area to the west of Maloelap Atoll Sunday morning.
Complicating the search was the lack of aerial surveillance after the government-run national air carrier’s one plane broke down Saturday, and a U.S. Coast Guard plane developed engine problems on its flight to Majuro Saturday, forcing it to return to Honolulu. A second flight was successful, with the Coast Guard C-130 search plane arriving Majuro early Sunday. But to meet air crew rest requirements, their first aerial search will not start until first light Monday — about 72 hours after the 20-foot boat with seven men was last seen.
“We’re looking at the possibility of the boat drifting to Wotje Atoll to the north,” said Lt. Commander George McKenzie on Sunday. McKenzie, who heads the Australian Navy’s marine surveillance advisory group that works with Marshall Islands Sea Patrol, said the police have alerted Wotje residents to help in the search for the small boat.
The Coast Guard has developed ocean current drift patterns that are guiding the search by the vessels in the Maloelap area, McKenzie said.
The seven men who are lost are employed by a tropical fish export company, and scuba dive for a living using the 20-foot vessel Aqua that has been missing since Friday mid-day. The boat’s short trip Friday along the ocean side of the reef should have been routine, according to Michael Slinger, the manager of TSL Enterprises that owns the vessels and employs the divers. “They make this trip a couple of times a week,” said Slinger, who is based in Majuro, the capital, about 120 miles to the south. “They are all between 18 and 30 years old, and fit swimmers.”
