Search ends for 12 missing crew members of Spanish fishing vessel off Newfoundland coast

The search for the missing crew members of the Spanish fishing vessel Villa de Pitanxo, which sank 460 kilometres off the eastern coast of Newfoundland early Tuesday morning, has been called off.

According to Lt.-Cmdr. Brian Owens of the Joint Rescue Coordination Centre in Halifax, 12 people of the 24-person crew remained missing as of 4 p.m. Wednesday afternoon. Three people survived, while nine bodies were recovered from the ocean.

At 21 casualties, this is the largest loss of life to sea off Newfoundland in more than two decades.

"The decision is never taken lightly. It is extremely difficult to come to this conclusion, but unfortunately all the evidence now points that the survivability is not there," he told CBC News on Wednesday afternoon.

Owens had previously said 10 people were killed in the accident, but issued a correction Wednesday afternoon. 

Among the survivors are the vessel's 53-year-old captain and his 42-year-old nephew, according to Spanish newspaper La Voz de Galicia.

The CCGS Cygnus remained on the scene overnight, assisted by other fishing vessels. Hercules and Cormorant aircraft returned to the area to assist on Wednesday, but Owens said worsening weather conditions and the low odds of survival played into calling off the search.

"We're now at over 36 hours of searching sea states over 10-metre waves, 45-knot winds, bone-chilling water in the North Atlantic in February, which is an inhospitable environment."

The search covered 900 square nautical miles, Owens said, with no sign of the Villa de Pitanxo or indicators that could lead to finding the missing crew members.

8 members from Galicia

The 50-metre-long Villa de Pitanxo operated out of Spain's Galicia province. On Tuesday, Owens said the JRCC learned of an emergency beacon coming from a fishing vessel about 250 nautical miles, or 460 kilometres, east of St. John's shortly after midnight.

Alberto Nunez Feijoo, leader of the Galicia province in northwest Spain, told reporters two Galician fishing boats were in the area at the time and were part of the initial recovery. Two life rafts were aboard the Villa de Pitanxo. The three survivors were found on one of them.

Sixteen Spaniards, five Peruvians and three Ghanaians are among the crew. The families of the missing men were notified of the search's end, Owens said.

On Wednesday, Cristina Porteiro, a reporter with La Voz de Galicia, told CBC News a lot of families in the area have been impacted by the tragedy. 

"We depend on the fishing.… A lot of families are linked to this sector," she said. 

"It's a very, very important sector for the local people."

Porteiro said at least eight of the crew members are from Galicia, and the captain and his nephew have been in contact with their families.

Tuesday's sinking came as a shock to the community, Porteiro said, and it's an event that has become increasingly rare for those connected to the fishing industry.

"We've seen accidents in the '60s and the '70s, but not in the '90s or in the last years, because the sector improved," she said. 

"The building of the ships, the security on board. It's really, really weird, really strange what happened. And we don't know yet what really happened."

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