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The hunt has been suspended for 5 missing unit members of a U.S.-flagged cargo vessel that overturned adjacent the Northern Mariana Islands during a typhoon, authorities said Wednesday.
Six radical were aboard the 145-foot ship, called the Mariana. Divers connected April 21 recovered one unit member's body from the overturned ship.
"We are profoundly saddened to denote that contempt wide efforts, we person made the hard determination to suspend our hunt for the missing unit members of the Mariana," Cmdr. Preston Hieb of the U.S. Coast Guard Oceania District said successful a video posted connected X. "We connection our heartfelt condolences to the families of the Mariana crew, arsenic good arsenic the full Saipan community."
The hunt lasted much than 100 hours and covered an country larger than the authorities of California, helium said.
Last week, officials released dramatic video and photos showing members of the U.S. Air Force and Coast Guard searching for the missing crew. The footage and images showed pararescuemen preparing to behaviour dive operations. The teams besides utilized a remotely operated underwater drone to hunt the interior of the ship.
U.S. Coast Guardsmen and pararescuers measure the country adjacent a capsized cargo vas successful the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands April 19, 2026.
U.S. Coast Guard photo, courtesy Cutter Frederick Hatch
The hunt was stopped 2 weeks aft the unit notified the Coast Guard that the vessel had mislaid its starboard engines and needed assistance arsenic Super Typhoon Sinlaku battered the Pacific land chain. The Coast Guard mislaid interaction with the vas the adjacent day.
Heavy upwind hindered archetypal hunt efforts, but the overturned vessel was yet spotted April 18 astir 40 miles northeast of Pagan, 1 of the islands that marque up the Northern Marianas, which is simply a U.S. territory.
The Coast Guard said debris included a partially submerged inflatable beingness raft was spotted astir 110 miles from the ship.
"The 5 remaining unit members are inactive missing," Hieb said.
A U.S. Coast Guard HC-130 Hercules airplane unit assigned to Coast Guard Air Station Barbers Point flies implicit an overturned vas offshore Saipan, April 18, 2026.
U.S. Coast Guard photograph Courtesy Air Station Barbers Point
Super Typhoon Sinlaku battered the Northern Mariana Islands, causing upwind harm and flooding. Sinlaku had sustained winds up of to 150 miles per hr erstwhile it battered Saipan and Tinian, according to the National Weather Service. CBS News meteorologist Nikki Nolan said it was the strongest tempest to make successful 2026.
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