Search for trawler crew ends

Press, 24 February 1986, Page 6

Search for trawler crew ends

NZPA-PA London The search has been abandoned for 15 French fishermen missing after a trawler sank in heavy seas off the west coast of Scotland. Rescuers who had been combing the North Atlantic said there was virtually no chance of finding any survivors.

Three bodies already have been recovered. The 640-ton trawler Snekkar Artic sank so rapidly on Friday that at least eight of her crew of 26 were below decks as she went down 580 km west of the Outer Hebrides. A rescue co-ordinator at Greenock, near Glasgow, said, “There was a chance

if any of the fishermen were in liferafts wearing survival suits. We have searched a very wide area and if they had been in a raft I think we would probably have spotted them by now. The chances of anyone surviving in the water must be very slim.” Nine crewmen were pulled from the sea by

another French trawler soon after the Snekkar Artic sank. A Royal Air Force Nimrod reconnaissance aircraft, a United States Navy Orion, and a Hercules transport searching for the 14 missing crewmen and one rescuer who fell overboard left the area yesterday. Eleven of the victims

were from the French coastal town of Fecamp, near Le Havre, which is now in mourning. The freezer trawler, just one-year-old, was considered to be one of the most up-to-date in France. An investigation into the sinking has been launched.