Search for Six Missing Crew Members Enters Fourth Day After Busan Tugboat Sinks

Four days after the tugboat TNS Catcher capsized and sank off Busan, rescuers had found no trace of the six missing crew members or any personal belongings. The missing include five South Koreans and one Indonesian.

The 286-ton tugboat had been towing the 66,332-ton Liberia-flagged container ship M when the accident occurred. At the families’ request, rescuers also searched around the container ship, including its underside.

The Busan Coast Guard deployed seven vessels for the daytime search: three Coast Guard ships, three military vessels and one government vessel. They focused on an area 65 kilometers wide and 31 kilometers long.

Northeasterly winds continued at 20 to 22 meters per second, and a rough-sea warning remained in effect. Clear weather allowed authorities to send eight aircraft, including Coast Guard, military and government planes, on eight aerial searches. The previous day, bad weather had limited aerial searches to two operations.

Twelve members of the Coast Guard’s central special rescue team inspected the bottom of container ship M, but the search still produced no report of the missing crew.