Boat That Sunk Off NJ, Killing 4, Was A Fishing Boat From Queens

HIGHLANDS, NJ — The boat that capsized in the Atlantic Ocean between Sandy Hook and Queens Sunday afternoon, killing three people aboard and with one man still missing, was a fishing boat that had departed from Howard Beach, Queens.

The boat was a pleasure craft, a 30-foot-long Grady White motorboat. Six people were aboard, said the U.S. Coast Guard in this update they published Monday afternoon.

Shortly after noon Sunday, the Coast Guard — based at their station on the tip of Sandy Hook — received a distress call that the boat was taking on water, and was located about five miles southeast of Breezy Point, Queens.

The boat was sinking in Ambrose Channel, which is a major shipping lane into the Port of New York/New Jersey and where Raritan Bay meets the Atlantic Ocean.

The current ocean water temperature is approximately 38 degrees.

Multiple Coast Guard rescue boats responded and pulled three people from the water. A Coast Guard helicopter that flew up from Atlantic City recovered the body of a fourth person, and a New York City Police helicopter recovered the fifth person.

Four were unconscious when they were pulled from the ocean, and all five were rushed to local hospitals. Three died Sunday night; they have not been indentified.

A sixth man on the boat remains missing and unaccounted for, said Coast Guard spokesman Sydney Phoenix. That man has been identified as Vernon Glasford, 52, and he fell into the water wearing a gray hooded sweatshirt, blue jeans and black boots.

Multiple boats and helicopters searched for Glasford throughout Sunday night.

"The Coast Guard is still searching for the missing individual. We currently have an aircrew from Air Station Atlantic City and the Coast Guard Cutter Chadwick on scene," Phoenix said Monday. "The Coast Guard is working diligently to find the individual missing."

The Coast Guard has not yet released the names of the five other people on the boat.

Patch will update this story when we get more information.