Search Resumes Today for Missing Fishermen in York

By WYDaily Staff Friday, March 05, 2010

A search for two fishermen believed to have drowned in the York River yesterday after their boat capsized will resume this morning.

Rescue teams from the James City-Bruton Volunteer Fire Department responded to a call for help at the Croaker Landing Boat Ramp at York River State Park yesterday morning to search for the men, ages 78 and 64. Their identities have not been made public while crews search.

Bill Apperson, spokesman for the volunteer department, told the story: Two commercial fishermen crews had launched off the Croaker ramp early that morning to fish gill nets in the York. One of the boats - with a lone fisherman as its crew, was returning to the dock around 9:30 a.m. when he noticed the two fishermen from the other boat fishing their nets slightly up river from the landing. After landing his boat, fisherman Preston Smith looked back to see how the crew was doing in the rough water and, searching for their boat, realized they'd disappeared.

"The visibility was good and the range was short," Apperson said in a statement. "There was no question that the boat had gone under."

Smith called the fire department around 9:45 a.m., reporting two people probably in the water. A rescue crew dispatcher called immediately for help from a Life-Evac helicopter stationed at the nearby West Point Airport. The helicopter was over the scene and searching for the lost fishermen withing several minutes, but no trace of them was found.

Arriving soon after were rescue crews on boats from several fire departments - Camp Peary, West Point and Gloucester - along with squads from the Coast Guard, Virginia Game Commission and Virginia Marine Commission. A dive team from the James City County Fire Department was on the scene but, like a crew from York County, not launched. Also searching for the men were crews in a pair of Coast Guard helicopters.

One of the Coast Guard air crews soon spotted an overturned boat - the missing fishermen's - in Mid River. Crews recovered the boat, but no one was on board.

The search for the pair continued throughout the day, to no avail. Apperson said it would resume this morning. Water temperatures were around 39 degrees, making long-term survival unlikely.