It certainly pays to have a working EPIRB, flares and other safety equipment if you’re going offshore. That truism was brought home recently when the Coast Guard found eight people on a raft 400 miles from Hawaii – because they had activated their EPIRB when their 89-foot commercial fishing boat started to sink.
The Coast Guard in Honolulu launched a HC-130 to search for the fishermen after it received an EPIRB alert that showed them in the Pacific about 400 miles north of Hilo. The aircrew started a search of the area and saw a flare and a liferaft with the eight on board. Only the stern of their boat, the Princess Hawaii, was above the water nearby.
The Coast Guard dropped a VHF and confirmed that the fishermen were in good condition with water, strobe lights and flares, and then it communicated with the crew of the Commander, another commercial fishing boat that was nearby, and guided them to the survivors. At the time the area had 10-foot seas and 18-knot winds.
Lt. Tim Lae, the duty officer at the Coast Guard Joint Rescue Coordination Center in Hawaii, praised the fishermen. “Properly registering their Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon and necessary safety equipment saved these people’s lives and made it possible for rescue crews to find them,” he said.
It was not immediately clear why the Princess Hawaii sank. For more:
