Search suspended for missing family of 4 after boat sinks off Alaska coast

globalnews.ca:

A Texas family of four is still missing after their boat capsized and sank off the coast of Alaska on Saturday while they were on a family vacation. The U.S. Coast Guard searched throughout the weekend for the family but suspended its search mission on Sunday evening after finding no sign of the missing four.

A relative identified the victims as Mary and David Maynard and their two sons, 11-year-old Colton and seven-year-old Brantley, the Anchorage Daily News reports. The family is from Troy, a small town of 2,000 residents nestled halfway between Austin and Dallas.

The Maynards were on a family trip to Alaska when they took a 28-foot aluminum boat out on the water off the coast of Homer with four other people. The vessel began to take on water around 7 p.m., the U.S. Coast Guard told the Anchorage Daily News.

The family sent a distress signal to the coast guard, who alerted nearby vessels to the boat’s location. A boat called the Salty Sea responded and rescued four unharmed people from a life raft.

The people rescued were the four others that the Maynards were boating with that day. Reports did not indicate why the Maynards were not on the life raft with the other individuals. The four people rescued have not been identified publicly.

U.S. Coast Guard spokesperson Travis Magee told The Associated Press he did not have information on the people who were rescued, nor did he have additional information on the boat that sank or what may have led to it capsizing.

The coast guard searched the area where the boat sank, which was roughly 25 kilometres west of the Homer Spit. A coast guard helicopter, plane and three boats were used in the search, in addition to help from Good Samaritans and the Alaska Wildlife Troopers.

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