As the scope of the disaster became clear, family members gathered on the coast at a family support center at a local fairground awaiting news about their loved ones. A makeshift memorial to the victims, with flowers, candles and notes, was erected at the harbor in Santa Barbara.
The deadly fire was the worst maritime disaster in California in recent memory and was another tragedy endured in recent years by the coastal community around Santa Barbara, which faced a devastating wildfire in 2017 followed by deadly mudslides.
Sheriff Bill Brown of Santa Barbara County said at a news conference Tuesday morning that 20 bodies had been recovered and that divers had seen between four and six additional bodies in the wreckage but were not yet able to recover them. Five crew members were able to escape and were the only ones to survive, including the captain. The boat had a total of 39 people on board: six crew members and 33 passengers.
“Sadly no additional survivors have been found,” Brown said.
Brown said that among the 20 bodies recovered, 11 were women, and nine were men. He said investigators were in the process of identifying the victims and collecting DNA samples from family members to help match the victims with loved ones.
Bob Hansen was sleeping in his fishing boat just a few hundred feet from the 75-foot scuba vessel, named the Conception, when he was roused by panicked crew members who had escaped.
“I could see the fire coming through holes on the side of the boat,” Hansen said. “There were these explosions every few beats. You can’t prepare yourself for that. It was horrendous.”
Even as divers continued to look for the bodies of the missing, investigators were trying to determine the cause of the fire on the boat, which the Coast Guard said Monday had been in compliance with safety regulations.
Among the victims were reportedly at least two students from the Pacific Collegiate School, a local charter school for grades seven to 12, and two parents, according to local news reports.
The Conception had been anchored off the shore of Santa Cruz Island, the largest of the Channel Islands, a national park of caves and coves off the Southern California coast. The passengers had been on three-day diving expedition and at the time of the fire were sleeping below deck in double-stacked bunk beds, which were tightly packed in one room, according to the website of Truth Aquatics, the Santa Barbara-based company that operated the vessel and for decades has taken passengers on diving trips around the islands.
A distress call that went out at about 3:15 a.m. Monday — less than an hour before the passengers were to be woken up for the day’s diving — was recorded by a Ventura County Marine radio channel: “Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!” a man’s voice yelled. “I can’t breathe!” he screamed.
Later in the morning, as the sun rose, the boat, moored in Platts Harbor on the north side of Santa Cruz Island, was smoking but still afloat, according to a photograph posted by the Santa Barbara Fire Department. Later in the morning, it sank, just 20 yards from shore.
Numerous federal agencies, including the Coast Guard, the National Transportation Safety Board and the National Park Service, and local law enforcement departments were involved in what officials said Tuesday had become a recovery operation. Rescuers Tuesday were planning to raze the boat and bring it to shore, to investigate what had caused the blaze.
This article originally appeared in
.