Workmates of a fisherman lost at sea off Queensland’s western cape are braving strong winds to continue the search for their missing colleague.<\/p>\n
The 27-year-old Japanese national went overboard from a prawn trawler about 16 nautical miles south-west of Weipa at about 4:20am on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
He was last seen wearing an orange high-visibility shirt and thongs.<\/p>\n
Police suspended the official search late on Thursday after the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) dismissed planes and helicopters from the area.<\/p>\n
At its height, the search included three helicopters, two jets, charter boats, 12 fishing boats, and Weipa Volunteer Marine Rescue.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The search for the missing fisherman has included multiple helicopters, jets and boats. (Babcock Australasia: Simon Casson)<\/p>\n
Hopes of finding the man alive were dashed when the AMSA confirmed that “time frames for survival [had] expired”.<\/p>\n
Austral Fisheries general manager Andy Prendergast said six of his company’s boats were still searching despite a strong wind warning.<\/p>\n
“This is a deeply tragic outcome for his family, his shipmates, and the broader industry,” he said.<\/p>\n
“Austral is maintaining close contact with the crew member’s family and is assisting with arrangements to bring them from Japan to Cairns.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Andy Prendergast has been assisting the investigations into the missing fisherman. (ABC Rural: Sophie Johnson)<\/p>\n
Mr Prendergast said the search had been a “tremendous, coordinated response from land, sea, and air”.<\/p>\n
He said Austral was supporting investigations by police and the AMSA.<\/p>\n
Cairns Japanese Consul Shingo Higashimoto thanked search agencies and volunteers for their help.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“Since this incident occurred, my office has been providing support to the family of the missing individual,” he said.<\/p>\n
“Our thoughts are with them at this difficult time.<\/p>\n
“I personally hope for the swift recovery of the missing young man.”<\/p>\n
Police will prepare a report for the coroner.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Workmates of a fisherman lost at sea off Queensland’s western cape are braving strong winds to continue the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":137343,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[64,94497,63,94496,75,11633,94494,54395,45318,94495,91610,128,91608,94498],"class_list":["post-137342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-au","tag-austral-fisheries","tag-australia","tag-australian-maritime-safety-authority","tag-environment","tag-fisherman","tag-gulf-of-carpentaria","tag-japanese","tag-missing","tag-official-search","tag-overboard","tag-science","tag-weipa","tag-wind-warning"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137342","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137342"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137342\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/137343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}