Search called off for missing fishers
Posted Sep 15, 2010 06:03:26 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
The search for a missing scallop boat in the Bay of Fundy has been called off.
Four men were aboard the RLJ, which didn’t return to port on Saturday as scheduled.
Military aircraft and Coast Guard ships have scoured the water since Monday but found only some scattered debris.
Maj. Paul Doucette of the Joint Rescue Coordination Centre in Halifax says the decision to call off the formal search was made around 7 p.m. Tuesday. He tells CTV the decision wasn’t easy.
“A lot of inputs are made from a lot of different organizations and people before we have to start to take a look at potentially reducing the search, and certainly that’s not taken lightly,” he said. “And of course the families and those close to the missing people, they’re all taken into the decision making process as well.”
Jonathan Davis, a close friend of RLJ crew member Cory LeBlanc, tearfully remembered his friend of nearly 20 years – and said he was nearly on the ship with him.
“I lived with him, fished with him just out the last trip,” he said. “Just happened to stay off the boat this time to go to school.”
Doucette says it’s unlikely at this point that anyone survived whatever happened to the dragger.
Captain Lee White and cousins Anthony and Brydon Orde were also on the RLJ. The men had life jackets, but there were no survival suits aboard.
