U.S. Coast Guardsmen assigned to USCGC Frederick Hatch support as a parajumper assigned to the U.S. Air Force 31st Rescue Squadron enters the water near a capsized cargo vessel northeast of Pagan in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, April 19, 2026 (U.S. Coast Guard)
The search for five missing crewmembers from a capsized cargo vessel near Saipan stretched into its second week Monday, as U.S. Coast Guard crews and other agencies combed an area of ocean roughly the size of California.
The Mariana, a 145-foot, U.S.-flagged dry cargo vessel with six crew members, reported engine failure April 15, the day Super Typhoon Sinlaku hit the Northern Mariana Islands. A Coast Guard search plane discovered the missing vessel upside down on April 18 off Saipan.
The slow-moving typhoon missed Guam by about 100 miles but made landfall April 15 on Tinian, with maximum sustained winds of 145 mph and heavy rain.
More than 15,000 people on Saipan were still without power Sunday while just a third of the island’s water services were restored, according to an update that day from the Northern Marianas’ Joint Information Center.
U.S. Air Force divers with the 31st Rescue Squadron from Kadena Air Base in Okinawa recovered the body of one crew member on April 20 at the capsized vessel, about 70 miles northeast of Pagan, a sparsely populated island.
Five crewmembers and an orange life raft are still missing after more than 85 hours of a search covering approximately 170,000 square miles, according to Sunday and Monday news releases from U.S. Coast Guard District Oceania and U.S. Coast Guard Forces Micronesia/Sector Guam.
An HC-130 Hercules from U.S. Coast Guard Air Station Barbers Point in Kapolei, Hawaii, flies over the overturned cargo vessel Mariana northeast of Pagan in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands on April 19, 2026. (U.S. Coast Guard)
The search participants include coast guardsmen from Hawaii and Guam, including the U.S. Coast Guard cutters Frederick Hatch and Oliver Henry; and from Japan the 31st Rescue Squadron, the 36th Airlift Squadron from Yokota Air Base and a U.S. Navy P-8A Poseidon from Task Force 72 at Misawa Air Base.
The Japan Coast Guard dispatched a Gulfstream V jet and the patrol vessel Akitsushima; the New Zealand air force provided a P-8A Poseidon for the search, according to Coast Guard Forces Micronesia/Sector Guam.
“Our hearts are with the families of the Mariana crew members and the communities impacted by this tragic incident,” Cmdr. Preston Hieb, search and rescue mission coordinator for Coast Guard Oceania District, said in the Sunday news release. “We continue to search in close coordination with our partners, using all available resources to support the ongoing response.”
The Coast Guard requests that anyone with information that might assist in the search should contact VHF-FM channel 16 or call the Joint Rescue Coordination Center Honolulu at 1-800-331-6176.
