A 54-hour search of the Bristol Bay region for Alaskan captain Roland Briggs found no sign of the mariner, but turned up debris believed to be from his 43’ landing craft Ketavik, Coast Guard officials said.
Aircraft from Coast Guard Air Station Kodiak and the cutter Munro scoured 8,000 square miles along the coast and offshore, with Alaska state police and assisted by civilian captains and a private pilot, before the search was suspended Saturday. During the search one MH-65 Dolphin helicopter had to land at the remote Pilot Point airfield to make repairs.
Briggs had been expected to his home port at Ugashik from Egegik after picking up a load of fuel Tuesday. He was reported missing Thursday morning, and that evening searchers spotted debris in the water, including fuel drums, believed to be from the Ketavik. Briggs, 55, was a lifelong resident of of the Lake and Peninsula borough, where he was also a commercial setnetter active in the fishing industry and community affairs.
In the New York-New Jersey harbor, a barge worker died Friday after slipping from a ladder and falling into the Kill Van Kull channel, the Coast Guard and local news media reported.
Danny Peters, 55, of Brooklyn, N.Y., worked for American Petroleum Transport, Port Jefferson, N.Y., and was in a tugboat crew that had brought a barge to the International Matex Tank Terminal in Bayonne, N.J., on the north side of the channel.
The Coast Guard and local police searched unsuccessfully for Peters Friday night. His body was located the next morning near the terminal by a New Jersey state police dive team.
