Rescuers Battle Atlantic Weather : 5 From Ship Found, 2 Die, 6 Missing; Search Goes On

Rescuers plucked five seamen from 25-foot swells in the stormy North Atlantic on Thursday, but two didn’t survive and six others were missing after their 254-foot container ship sank, the Coast Guard said.

Six planes from the Coast Guard, the Navy and the Air National Guard battled 40- to 50-knot winds as they searched for more survivors among the 11 crewmen who were aboard the Cypriot-registered Lloyd Bermuda when its cargo shifted shortly after 7 p.m. Wednesday. The crew abandoned the container ship in two life rafts minutes before it capsized at about 7:15 p.m.

Four volunteer merchant ships were also searching a 5,700-square-mile area about 200 miles east of Barnegat Light, N.J., and 160 miles south of the Massachusetts resort island of Nantucket.

At least one helicopter and a merchant vessel were expected to continue searching for missing crewmen overnight Thursday, said Petty Officer Brandy Ian of the Coast Guard office in Boston, which was coordinating the rescue.

“We’re optimistic,” Coast Guard spokesman Gregory Creedon said. “That’s why we have such an intensive search effort going on.”

Creedon said the water temperature in the area of the accident was believed to be 45 to 50 degrees. He said the chances of the crew members’ surviving “depends on how well they are clothed, whether they are in the raft or floating on debris.”

At first light Thursday, a Navy pilot spotted what he thought was a man waving from a life raft, but when rescuers reached the raft they found nobody on board, Wolf said.

Three hours later, rescuers said, they spotted another man but, because of choppy seas and floating debris, could not get close enough to tell if he was alive. By the time a rescue helicopter reached him four hours later, the man was floating face down, Ian said.

Four other crew members were rescued earlier, but one was pronounced dead on arrival at a Cape Cod hospital.

Debris from the deck was all that remained of the ship, which sank in heavy rain, winds gusting to 50 knots and seas of 20 to 25 feet, officials said.

“The load shifted. The captain gave a distress call,” Coast Guard Lt. Paul Wolf said. “Just a few minutes later he called back to say he was getting ready to abandon ship . . . . It was all very sudden.”

Circles Over Group

Shortly after midnight, a Coast Guard jet spotted three of the crew members floating together and circled over the group until a merchant vessel arrived.

Rescuers hauled two of the men aboard about 1:45 a.m., but the third slipped through his life jacket back into the ocean “and was not seen again,” Wolf said.

The first two suffered mild hypothermia but were otherwise unharmed, Wolf said.

Two other crewmen were picked up by a helicopter and a rescue swimmer about 4 a.m. Thursday. One was pronounced dead on arrival at about 6:30 a.m. at Falmouth Hospital on Cape Cod. The other was in stable condition.

None of the identities of the crew have been released, although Wolf said the men were of mixed nationalities.