Cause Sought of Deadly Harbor Collision
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Coast Guard officials are attempting to determine what caused a collision between a yacht and a barge in a shipping channel near New York Harbor this weekend that left two dead.
Four men, all from New Jersey, toppled from the 24-foot pleasure craft. They appeared to be headed home from a fishing trip at 10:54 p.m. on Saturday when they crashed into the barge, Coast Guard officials said.
The barge had been dredging the riverbed and was loaded with mud.
The two who died were identified by police as Robert Chacon, 47, of Saddlebrook and John Isello, 43, of Hasbrouck Heights.
One of the survivors was plucked from the water by crew members of the Captain Dave, a fishing boat. The other survivor was picked up by NYPD divers and carried to a hospital by a police helicopter. The survivors, ages 61 and 46, were not identified by police, but officials said both were recovering and in stable condition.
Chacon was described as a “wonderful” person by a neighbor, Loraine Wieczorek, who said he had a wife and an elementary school-age daughter. A neighbor of Isello said his wife was very distraught yesterday, and said family members had heard few details about the accident.
None of the four men were wearing life vests, Coast Guard officials said.
They said investigators would look into whether operators of both boats had consumed any alcohol. The police department’s harbor unit towed the smaller boat to Randall’s Island, where Coast Guard officials said they would be conducting the investigation.
The yacht had been headed west when it hit the barge, the Melvin Lemmerhirt, which was being towed by a tugboat. The barge had been headed south out of the harbor, with a full load of mud dug from the shipping channels to dump at sea near Sandy Hook, N.J.
A Coast Guard official said smaller pleasure craft are allowed to travel through the Ambrose Channel, where the accident occurred. The channel is the main passageway into New York Harbor. He also said it would have been normal for a the smaller boat, which is of type often used for fishing, to be out as late as 11 p.m., when some fish are more prone to bite.
