Vancouver Sun
 AP Photo/Darryl Dyck A helicopter and hovercraft conduct a search and rescue mission after three Bangladeshi crew members went missing from a cargo ship in Vancouver, B.C., on Monday. |
VANCOUVER — The Vancouver police marine squad was continuing to search Tuesday for two sailors who disappeared from their vessel over the weekend.
The search now is being handled by the police missing persons squad after one body was found in the shallow waters off Spanish Banks late Monday.
The recovered body is believed to be that of one of three men who fled a cargo ship moored in English Bay.
Police said the three Bangladeshi men had climbed down a rope from the Ginga Falcon, which was moored about one kilometre off Locarno Beach, sometime Sunday night or early Monday morning.
The three - who range in age from 22 to 25 years old - were believed to have been wearing only rain jackets for protection, police said, adding no safety equipment was missing from the 200-metre vessel.
Search-and-rescue crews found the body at about 11 a.m.
Rescuers said they presumed it was the body of one of the missing three, but could not say for certain until after an investigation by the B.C. Coroners Service.
Later in the afternoon Monday, other searchers found one of the ship’s rain jackets floating in the water.
Officials with the Singapore-based shipping company Unix Line were trying Monday afternoon to make sense of why the three junior crewmen jumped from one of their ships into the 10 C waters of English Bay with nothing but raincoats for protection.
“We wish we had answers,” said Darrell Wilson, spokesman for the company that operates 33 ships around the world.
“No one really knows what’s going through someone else’s mind when they do something like this,” he added, saying he believes the shipping industry offers good jobs and a good work environment.
Wilson said he did not know how long the three men had worked with Unix Line, which operates the Ginga Falcon, and had no specific details about their personal situations.
He did say the news came as a surprise to the company, adding he was hopeful the two remaining men would be found safe.
“Our sympathies go out to their families and to the rest of the crew on board the ship,” Wilson said, adding he is grateful to Canadian authorities for such a quick and thorough response.
Wilson said tankers the size of the Ginga Falcon usually have about 20 crew members on board. Travelling under a Panamanian flag, the Ginga Falcon arrived in the Vancouver area about 9 p.m. Sunday. Lt.-Cmdr. Gerry Pash of the Joint Rescue Coordination Centre in Victoria said the ship had come from San Francisco, and was in Vancouver to pick up a shipment of antifreeze.
He said officials on the boat realized the three were missing at about 7:30 a.m., after they did not show up for their shifts at 6 a.m.
This sparked a widespread search involving the coast guard, military and police, Pash said.
The Canada Border Services Agency was also involved.
Pash said the coast guard cutter Osprey and hovercraft Siyay were involved in the search, as was the Vancouver police patrol boat R.G. McBeath and a Cormorant helicopter from CFB Comox, which joined the search at about 10 a.m.
Officials were still searching late Monday afternoon.