Crew members missing after dredging vessel fire in Texas

Coast Guard rescues two crewmen and searches for four others

Coast Guard crews respond to a fire on a dredging vessel in the Port of Corpus Christi shipping channel Friday. (Photo: U.S. Coast Guard)

The U.S. Coast Guard is searching for four missing crew members from a dredging vessel that caught fire Friday in the Port of Corpus Christi shipping canal in Texas.

The fire aboard the Waymon L. Boyd was reported at 8:12 a.m. Coast Guard Air Station Corpus Christi launched an MH-65 Dolphin helicopter and hoisted two injured crew members to safety and transferred them to a local hospital.

The Coast Guard also responded with two Station Port Aransas 45-foot response boats as well as the cutters Chinook and Manta. Port of Corpus Christi police and fire units as well as Signet Maritime tugs are assisting in the search and the extinguishing of the fire.  

The captain of the port at Corpus Christi has closed the inner harbor as the fire response and search for the crew continues.

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Click for more American Shipper/FreightWaves stories by Senior Editor Kim Link-Wills.

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Kim Link Wills

Senior Editor Kim Link-Wills has written about everything from agriculture as a reporter for Illinois Agri-News to zoology as editor of the Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine. Her work has garnered awards from the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education, the Georgia Institute of Technology and the Magazine Association of the Southeast. Prior to serving as managing editor of American Shipper, Kim spent more than four years with XPO Logistics.