6 Dead, 12 Missing as Cargo Ship With 31 Aboard Sinks off Bermuda

Clinging to life rafts dropped by Canadian and U.S. aircraft or floating in high seas, 13 sailors were rescued Friday in a dramatic operation after their cargo ship sank in the Atlantic.

But Friday night, hours after the bodies of six others were recovered, the search by aircraft and ships was called off with 12 crew members missing and presumed dead.

“They haven’t found anyone since the last deceased crew member, and that was [Friday] morning,” said Allison von Hagn, a petty officer with the Coast Guard Rescue Coordination Center in Norfolk, Va.

The Leader L, with 31 crew members on board, sank 400 miles northeast of Bermuda within hours of placing a distress call Thursday afternoon.

The crew of a Canadian C-130 aircraft that arrived at the scene watched as the bow of the 776-foot ship dipped into the water and the Leader L slid into the sea at a 45-degree angle--all within 30 seconds.

Radio transmissions from the Leader L continued until just seconds before it went under, suggesting that some of the crew might never have escaped the vessel, said Lt. Cmdr. Glenn Chamberlain, spokesman for the Canadian Forces and Coast Guard Rescue Coordination Center in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Details about what caused the sinking are sketchy. Officials said that in a distress call, the Leader L reported that a 45-foot steel hull plate had come loose, flooding the hold.

In a rescue operation that began in darkness, with gusty winds and 15-foot waves, rescuers were lowered from hovering Canadian Sea King helicopters until they could get survivors on lifts and hoist them up.

Some of the survivors were floating in the open ocean, while at least six were found in two lifeboats that had been dropped by Canadian and a U.S. C-130 aircraft well before the helicopters could arrive. “It was a life-saving decision” on the part of the Canadian and U.S. air crews, Chamberlain said.

The choppers ferried the 13 survivors and six dead to the Canadian navy destroyer Iroquois, which headed for Bermuda. The 13 survivors were reported in good condition, Chamberlain said.

The four Canadian Sea King helicopters operated from a five-vessel task force that had been en route to military exercises in the Caribbean and was immediately diverted to the sinking.

Owned by Leoninus Shipping of Greece, the Panamanian-registered Leader L was carrying salt from Spain to New York. At least some of its crew were Filipino and Greek, Chamberlain said.