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Signal lost from NTCL barge adrift in Arctic Ocean since last year

The U.S. Coast Guard says it's no longer tracking a Canadian barge that went adrift in the Beaufort Sea last year, after a GPS beacon dropped on board last fall stopped transmitting.

Barge was off Russia's coast in March

CBC News ·
This photo of the NTCL barge adrift northwest of Alaska's Prudhoe Bay was taken on Oct. 31, 2014. (ERA Aviation)

The U.S. Coast Guard says it's no longer tracking a Canadian barge that went adrift in the Beaufort Sea last year, after a GPS beacon dropped on board last fall stopped transmitting.

In March, a tracking device aboard the barge had shown it had travelled about 800 km and was about 42 kilometres away from Russia. The signal from from the tracking device was lost in May. (Submitted by Marine Exchange of Alaska)
The Northern Transportation Company Limited barge broke away from its towboat in October 2014 as it was returning to Tuktoyaktuk, N.W.T., after delivering supplies to a remote site along the Canadian coastline. It is unloaded, although it was carrying 3,500 litres of light diesel in its fuel tanks.

As it drifted west in the fall, along Alaska's coast, it eventually became trapped in ice. The U.S. Coast Guard dropped the GPS beacon on the barge to help track it.

In March, the locator beacon indicated the barge was off Russia's Siberian coast, but the U.S. Coast Guard said the signal was getting weak. The beacon stopped transmitting in May.

NTCL had said it intended to retrieve the barge this month.

The company has not returned calls from CBC News for comment.

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