One body was recovered and six people remained unaccounted for after a fishing boat was reported missing on Friday off the coast of Massachusetts, the U.S. Coast Guard said.
The Coast Guard said it had begun a search-and-rescue effort after it received an emergency alert from the Lily Jean, a 72-foot fishing vessel, around 6:50 a.m. on Friday.
The vessel was about 25 miles off the coast of Cape Ann, Mass., about 40 miles northeast of Boston, when it activated its emergency position-indicating radio beacon, the Coast Guard said in a news release.
The Coast Guard tried to contact the vessel, but got no response.
Rescue crews located a debris field near the location where the vessel had sent its emergency activation, the Coast Guard said.
One “unresponsive” body was recovered from the water, the Coast Guard said. Efforts on Friday to reach the medical examiner’s office, which had been contacted by the Coast Guard, were unsuccessful.
A life raft associated with the vessel was found, but it was unoccupied.
It was unclear on Friday where the vessel had departed from or where it was headed or the purpose of its voyage. The identities of those on board were not publicly released.
The air temperature when the boat sent its emergency radio alert was around 6 degrees Fahrenheit, with a wind chill reading of 6 degrees below zero, according to the National Weather Service.
The water temperature at Good Harbor Beach in Gloucester, Mass., on Friday was about 40 degrees, according to local weather data.
The search will continue through the night, the Coast Guard said on social media.
A helicopter crew from Air Station Cape Cod and a boat crew from Gloucester, Mass., were searching the area. The Coast Guard also sent an 87-foot patrol boat to help in the search, a spokesman said.
The Lily Jean went missing not far from Gloucester, a port city that is the oldest working fishing port in the United States.
The city was the setting of “The Perfect Storm,” the best-selling creative nonfiction book that was made into a 2000 movie by the same name about a fishing boat, the Andrea Gail, and its crew caught in a life-threatening storm.
“Fishermen and fishing vessels are core to the history, economy and culture of Gloucester and Cape Ann, and this tragedy is felt all across the state,” Gov. Maura Healey of Massachusetts said on social media.
Hannah Ziegler is a general assignment reporter for The Times, covering topics such as crime, business, weather, pop culture and online trends.
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