(SAN FRANCISCO) — The Coast Guard said it has suspended search operations for the three people unaccounted for after a boat capsized and sank in San Francisco Bay near Alcatraz Island.
Jarod Toczko, the commander for U.S. Coast Guard Sector San Francisco, told reporters earlier that the decision to suspend the search was not easy, but his teams swept through 950 square nautical miles and hadn’t found the missing people or the boat.
“We have completely saturated the search area,” he said.
“We always hold out hope,” he later added.
Overall, crews spent a total of 54 combined hours searching for the missing people, the Coast Guard said in a statement late Wednesday announcing the search had been suspended.
Authorities said they believe 20 people were aboard the Volare, a 50-foot cabin cruiser based out of Stockton, California, when it was hit by a wave Tuesday evening, causing it to capsize.
One man who was aboard was taken to the shore severely injured and, despite CPR being administered, was pronounced dead, officials said. He was identified on Wednesday by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner as 79-year-old Clifford Joseph Boisa.
A dog was also killed in the incident, San Francisco Fire Chief Dean Crispen told reporters Wednesday.
Three people were taken to the hospital and later released, according to Crispen.
Crispen told reporters that authorities believe that there was a memorial service that the 20 passengers, all adults and mostly comprised of family members, were taking part in on the vessel when it capsized.
Toczko told reporters that there was a “high possibility that individuals could have been trapped in the vessel.”
One survivor said it was a memorial for her sister, ABC San Francisco station KGO reported.
Rescuer Justin Marceline told KGO that some passengers were “banging on the windows, trying to get out” of the boat.
“It was pretty wild, seeing that, honestly,” Marceline said, adding that conditions in the water were “really bad.”
“The people that were bobbing in the water, we pulled them out first,” Marceline said. “The people in the water were elderly folks, they were conscious, but people were too tired and worn out.”
Toczko praised the work of the Good Samaritans who jumped to save the passengers.
“No question, no doubt…those people saved lives,” he said.
The San Francisco Fire Department said it initially received a call for a fire on the boat at 3:30 p.m. local time. However, authorities said they haven’t yet seen evidence that there was a fire on board.
Earlier, authorities said they believed there were 19 people aboard and that they were looking for two missing passengers.
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