A memorial turns deadly: What we know about the boat accident near Alcatraz

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Set us as preferred Authorities are trying to determine the cause of a boat sinking on San Francisco Bay, leaving one person dead and three missing and presumed dead.Here’s a brief rundown of what happened.A group of 20 passengers — mostly family and friends — boarded the boat, called Volare, Tuesday for a memorial service to honor a loved one.After setting out from a marina in the San Francisco Bay Area, they passed under the Golden Gate Bridge to the Pacific Ocean and across the San Francisco Bay to Angel Island.But as afternoon winds whipped up, the 49-foot recreational cruise boat took on water as they made their way back to shore.

It began to sink about 600 yards off of Alcatraz Island at about 3:30 p.m.Some passengers clung to the top deck of the submerged boat while others floated in choppy waters.Multiple 911 calls came in for a vessel in distress, prompting a massive rescue operation involving the U.S.

Coast Guard and the San Francisco Fire Department and multiple partner agencies.Several Good Samaritans also worked to pull people out of the top level of the sinking vessel.

Rescuers scrambled to pull 17 passengers to safety Tuesday afternoon, but one person was pronounced dead upon reaching the shore and three people were transported to a local hospital with injuries from falling into the water.Three passengers remain missing.The search for the missing was challenged not only by high winds and rough seas, but because the incident took place in a particularly deep channel of the bay dredged for cargo ships, according to Lt.

Mariano Elias, a spokesperson for the San Francisco Fire Department.While most of the San Francisco Bay is less than 30 feet deep, the area where the boat went down was about 130 feet deep.That made it impossible to reach for Fire Department divers, who typically do not venture lower than ...