Diver missing after boat wreck found

Rescue services were last night searching off the Wexford coast for a missing sub-aqua diver in the area where the lobster boat Rising Sun sank on Tuesday.

The Department of the Marine confirmed last night that a local sub-aqua team had visited a wreck about two miles southeast of the Saltees.

Navy personnel aboard the LE Emer which was co-ordinating the search, were awaiting the arrival of specialist diving equipment from Cork when the sub-aqua divers went down.

The missing man is understood to be an experienced diver who was in visual contact with another diver until less than 30ft from the surface.

Diving in the area was restricted by the Department of the Marine on Wednesday because of wreckage and oil bobbing to the surface.

The sub-aqua team had gone down after the debris stopped surfacing, and the restriction was lifted yesterday morning.

The divers claimed to have positively identified the wreck as that of the Rising Sun. It was lying about 158ft below the surface.

They said there was no sign of the skipper, Pat Colfer, who has been missing since the sinking on Tuesday afternoon.

A Department of the Marine spokesman confirmed a one-mile exclusion zone had been set up as oil and debris was seeping up from the wreckage on the sea bed. He said the exclusion zone was put in place as a safety precaution for 24 hours and had been lifted. However he added that the rescue services would not condone a dive in that depth of water without specialist equipment such as a diving bell.

Navy personnel had spent much of yesterday awaiting the arrival of a diving bell. The service was also expecting a robotic submarine.

Two of the three-man crew of the Rising Sun were brought ashore on Tuesday night, but Jimmy Meyler of Ballyhack died later in hospital. Ian Tierney of Kilmore Quay was discharged from hospital yesterday.

Investigators from the Marine Casualty Investigation Board and the Garda were yesterday interviewing Mr Tierney about the loss of the boat.

Meanwhile, local lobstermen expressed concern that no emergency distress signal appears to have been picked up when the boat sank. While the crew apparently did not have time to launch a Mayday signal, the boat's radio should have sent out an automatic signal when the apparatus came into contact with water.

Local fishermen said the men would not have spent so long in the water if a signal had alerted them to the loss of the boat. The loss was noted only after the boat failed to return to Kilmore Quay at 4.30pm on Tuesday. It had been seen by a neighbouring boat at 3.30pm and all appeared well.

An automatic distress signal, picked up by a commercial airliner in the area and relayed to the coast guard at Kinloss in Scotland, had two possible origins. These were 850 miles west of Ireland, and a point in Co Monaghan. The Department of Defence has discounted the possibility of this signal coming from the Rising Sun, and said it was more likely a phantom signal.

However local fishermen and members of the Kilmore Quay lifeboat crew have raised questions as to why the Rising Sun's emergency equipment appears not to have sent any signal.

A spokesman told The Irish Times the Rising Sun had carried such equipment, but why it apparently failed to send a distress signal was a mystery.