Family of four – including two young children – declared dead month after boat capsized off Alaska
A family of four that disappeared after their boat capsized off the coast of Alaska has been official declared dead nearly two months after the tragic mishap.
David Maynard, 42, his wife Mary, 37, and their two children, 11-year-old Colton and 7-year-old Brantley, went missing on Aug. 3 when a 28-foot boat they were in turned over about 16 miles off the coast of Homer Spit, KCEN-TV News reported.
Four others who were on the aluminum craft were rescued by the US Coast Guard — but the Maynard family was never found despite a 30-hour search of the area, the outlet said.
“They were just gone,” one of the survivors told the station. “It had to have been, I mean, it was 10 minutes, maybe 10 minutes from us having fun to the boat. The boat rolled like this tipped on its side and then the engines went down and just the nose up.”
On Sept. 19, a six-member jury declared the Maynards officially dead during a presumptive death hearing — a proceeding to determine the fate of missing persons thought to have died, according to records that were newly obtained KCEN.
At the hearing, the captain of the doomed boat testified that the craft’s engine failed, so he anchored the boat — when David Maynard noticed something was amiss.
“At one point. David asked me, got my attention and he pointed to the back corner of the deck where there was a drain hole for water that would come up get on deck,” said the captain, who was not named.
“He pointed to it and he said, is that normal? I said no,” he said. “At that point, went into the cabin and I just got ready to fire up the engine to pull anchor, but engines wouldn’t start and I kept trying.”
With the boat sinking, the captain said he went after his own family to rescue them and lost sight of the Maynards, who disappeared in the frigid waters, the outlet reported.
