Hope fades for three aboard missing fishing vessel

Hope of finding the three people missing aboard a Kilkeel fishing boat was fading on Friday evening as a massive air-sea search failed to find the vessel.

The rescue operation was escalated on Friday in an increasingly desperate bid to locate a fishing boat with three generations of one family on board.

The 10-metre vessel, the Tullagh Murray Lass, left the harbour at Kilkeel for a day's fishing around 3.30pm on Thursday February 14. The boat should have returned early on Friday morning, but the alarm was raised when the vessel failed to return to its home port in south Down.

Michael Greene, aged 56, his 32-year-old son and his eight-year-old grandson both also called Michael Greene, were on board the missing vessel.

On Friday morning a coastguard spokesman said the disappearance had been upgraded from an emergency to a Mayday situation. However, as light faded the search was due to be suspended as 18:00 hrs on Friday.

An RAF Nimrod plane and more than 25 fishing boats joined three lifeboats from Newcastle, Clogher Head, Kilkeel and the Irish Lights vessel Granuaille, to help locate the missing boat.

A Wessex helicopter from RAF Aldergrove also joined the search, which spanned the Irish Sea, from Liverpool Bay to Dublin Bay.

Concern grew for the safety of the trio when no communication had been received on Thursday evening.

As the search area was extended on Friday afternoon, the weather remained favourable with calm sea conditions, but the intensive search operation failed to find any trace of the missing boat or of the three members of the Green family.

(AMcE)