{"id":468349,"date":"2026-02-09T10:59:16","date_gmt":"2026-02-09T10:59:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/468349\/"},"modified":"2026-02-09T10:59:16","modified_gmt":"2026-02-09T10:59:16","slug":"search-ends-for-very-loved-gold-coast-fisherman-ash-haigh-after-almost-five-days-lost-at-sea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/468349\/","title":{"rendered":"Search ends for ‘very loved’ Gold Coast fisherman Ash Haigh after almost five days lost at sea"},"content":{"rendered":"

Queensland Police have suspended the cross-border search for Gold Coast fisherman Ash Haigh, after scouring 1,800 square nautical miles for the “very loved” family man.<\/p>\n

Mr Haigh, 44, was reported missing last Thursday night after failing to return to the Runaway Bay Marina as planned.<\/p>\n

His unoccupied boat was found drifting 50 kilometres south-east of the Gold Coast Seaway early on Friday morning.<\/p>\n

Police described the boat as being in good condition, with no apparent reason why no-one was on board.<\/p>\n

The boat’s inactive emergency position indicating radio beacon (EPIRB) was located around 25 kilometres south of Ballina, New South Wales, on Saturday afternoon.<\/p>\n

Chief Superintendent Kylie Rigg said Mr Haigh was an experienced fisher, had appropriate safety gear, and that conditions on the water were favourable.<\/p>\n

“As to how that EPIRB has ended up overboard, I don’t know,” she said.<\/p>\n

“Sadly, through events that we are yet to establish \u2014 and perhaps we may not even be able to establish \u2014 that person is no longer on board that boat.”<\/p>\n

Two fishing rods were missing from the boat.<\/p>\n

While four marine rescue boats and one aircraft were deployed south of Point Danger yesterday, police announced that the search had been scaled back to a recovery operation after no signs of life were discovered.<\/p>\n

It was formally suspended last night.<\/p>\n

The large-scale air and sea search covered 1,800 square nautical miles between the Gold Coast and Yamba.<\/p>\n

\"two<\/p>\n

Lauren Haigh described her brother as a “loved” family man. (Supplied: Lauren Haigh)<\/p>\n

In a statement, Mr Haigh’s sister, Lauren Haigh, said “he is a very loved and special father, husband, brother, son and friend to many”.<\/p>\n

“He was my first best friend growing up,” she said.<\/p>\n

“We would like to thank everyone that has been involved in searching to bring him home.”<\/p>\n

A Queensland Police spokesperson said they remained in contact with Mr Haigh’s family.<\/p>\n

Chief Superintendent Rigg said the incident was not considered suspicious but anyone with information should contact police.<\/p>\n

“Even if it’s the most smallest of information that you think may not actually be related,” she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Queensland Police have suspended the cross-border search for Gold Coast fisherman Ash Haigh, after scouring 1,800 square nautical…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":468350,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[45957,239355,64,63,10851,21570,11633,5405,239354,239352,45318,37631,44,239353,4106,7452,63355],"class_list":["post-468349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-ash","tag-ash-haigh","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-dead","tag-ended","tag-fisherman","tag-found","tag-gold-coast-fisherman","tag-haigh","tag-missing","tag-missing-man","tag-news","tag-police-suspended","tag-queensland-police","tag-search","tag-search-and-rescue"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468349","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=468349"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468349\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/468350"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=468349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=468349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=468349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}