The sunken remains of the Volare have been located at the bottom of San Francisco Bay — not far from where the 49-foot cabin cruiser capsized in a tragic incident believed to have killed four of the 20 passengers aboard.
Now, questions are swirling about whether authorities will be able to raise the boat, if any bodies are inside, and if the wreckage can reveal what happened.
The San Francisco Police Department has been using boat-mounted sonar to search for the vessel since Tuesday and located its remains Friday. The department’s marine unit is now using an underwater drone to assess the wreckage and evaluate whether it is feasible to bring the boat to the surface.
The area of ocean where the boat capsized, around 600 feet west of Alcatraz Island, is about 130 feet deep, just past the limit to which humans can safely dive, according to San Francisco Police Cmdr. Brien Hoo.
Water pressure at that depth drastically increases the force needed to lift the boat, posing an additional challenge to the recovery effort.
“We’re going to have to look for a specialized company that can help with recovery and help lift the boat,” Hoo said Wednesday. “This hasn’t happened as long as I can remember, so we’re definitely going to have to have all hands on deck to think about how we’re going to safely recover the boat.”
The department is continuing to investigate what caused the boat to capsize, and to search for the two passengers who remain missing and are presumed dead.
A group of 20 passengers were aboard the Volare for a memorial service to honor a loved one when the boat capsized.
Survivors reported that a wave hit the boat, causing it to list heavily and suddenly roll over, according to Jarod Toczko, the U.S. Coast Guard’s San Francisco sector commander.
But maritime investigators and experts, including a captain who was out in the bay that day, told The Times that a single wave was unlikely to have caused such a large cabin cruiser to sink. Though the exact cause will not be determined until officials retrieve the boat from the ocean floor and conduct a full investigation, they said the vessel likely took on water after a series of cascading issues or failures.
There is a “high probability” that missing individuals could have been trapped inside the vessel when it sank, Toczko said. Based on survivor interviews, it appears that most passengers were on the main deck when the boat tipped over, but some may have been below deck, he said.
Clifford Joseph Boisa, 79, died Tuesday after succumbing to injuries sustained in the incident. The body of a second victim, identified as Tondra Miller, 58, was recovered near Treasure Island on Thursday.
Authorities have not released the identities of the two passengers who remain unaccounted for.
“Our hearts go out to all the individuals involved in this tragic incident,” the San Francisco Police Department said in a statement Friday. “The SFPD would like to thank all our partner agencies and members of the public for their quick actions during the rescue and for their tireless work on the response and search for the missing individuals.”
Times staff writer Jenny Jarvie contributed to this report.
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