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Missing Western Australian trawler found with body of one man on board Missing Western Australian trawler found with body of one man on board
(about 3 hours later)
A trawler that has been missing for more than two weeks off Western Australia’s Pilbara coast has been found with the body of a man on board. Police divers have confirmed they have found the sunken wreckage of a fishing boat that went missing with three crew members off Western Australia’s north-west coast 18 days ago.
A body believed to be one of the three missing fishermen was on board the boat, which was found during an underwater search 20km north of the Karratha Nickol bay foreshore.
Related: Hopes fading for three fishermen missing off Western Australia's Pilbara coastRelated: Hopes fading for three fishermen missing off Western Australia's Pilbara coast
Mason Carter, 26, Chad Fairley, 30, and Murray Turner, 57, failed to return to Point Samson, near Karratha, in their 13-metre trawler, named the Returner, on 15 July as expected. Murray Turner, Chad Fairley and Mason Carter set off in the commercial prawn trawler, the Returner, on a 10-day fishing trip and were due to return to Point Samson, a small fishing town near Karratha, about 1,580km north of Perth, on the morning of Wednesday, 15 July. The last communication with the 13-metre trawler was on 11 July.
Police said on Sunday they had found the boat 20km north of Karratha with the body of a man on board, which was flown to Perth for formal identification. All three men are from Geraldton, a regional town about 1,150km to the south.
The families of the three missing men have been notified. The wreckage was picked out on a sonar scan on Wednesday, and police divers began searching the 200 sq km area on Friday.
A WA police spokesman, Adam Brouwer, confirmed the identity of the boat on Sunday, and said the body would be flown to Perth for formal identification. The families of all three men have been notified.
By Sunday, a fundraising campaign run by Lisa Dawson, the wife of Fairley’s cousin, had raised $180,000 to support the search efforts, including hiring a magnetic data aircraft and private helicopter.
In a statement posted on the gofundme.com page late on Saturday, Dawson said the body had been identified as that of Murray Turner. Turner, at 57, was the oldest and least fit of the crew.
She was still holding out hopes they would find Fairley, 30, and Carter, 26, who were described by police as “very fit and good swimmers”.
“Windows in the wheelhouse were knocked out so it looks like the boys may have made it out,” Dawson’s update said.
“More helicopters, boat and skis went out again today to cover more land. We can’t help but have a small bit of hope … Still searching.”
A life raft, personal emergency beacon, rations and some fishing supplies washed up on Dolphin Island the day after the boat was expected to make port.
Fairley’s father, Alan, told the West Australian five days into the search that he feared they had “exhausted the opportunity to find them alive”, but said, “I’m just hoping they are on the boat and we get some closure.
“We don’t want to leave this open.”
All the Fairley family has of Chad is a single shoe, bought from his cousin’s surf shop, which was among items washed up on Dolphin Island.
“Credit to the police. They let me take it home and show it to my parents so that they at least had something of Mick’s before it had to go into evidence,” Chad’s brother Kane told ABC radio north-west on Tuesday.
“It was a little bit comforting to at least have something.”
When he last spoke to his brother, a few days before the boat was declared missing, “he couldn’t wait to come meet his nephew”, Kane’s newborn son.
He thanked the community in Geraldton and the Pilbara for their support and generosity.
“It’s changed my scope on the way human life is again,” Kane said. “I didn’t think people were so giving. We have been getting fed every night; people have been accommodating us. It’s touching.
“If anyone ever was in Geraldton … and they ever mention that they are from Dampier or Karratha, they can stay with me. I would do anything for you people now, after what you have done for us.”
Kane said the family’s priority was to find the boat, and hopefully the bodies, so they have enough evidence to satisfy a death certificate.
“Everyone is just hurting so much so we’re not going to stop until we have closure,” he said.