A jury on Monday (3-4-24) made a finding of presumptive death in the case of two Sitka teens lost in a boating accident earlier this winter.
Testimony during the trial from Sitka’s Dive Rescue team and the US Coast Guard shed new light on the efforts to recover the pair – and why those efforts did not succeed.
Darren Borbridge and Sayer Tuzon were two of the five people aboard a boat which capsized in rough seas off Khaz Bay the afternoon of January 9, 2024. The group was returning from a hunting trip on Chichagof Island, about 40 miles northwest of Sitka.
A helicopter from Air Station Sitka located the vessel as darkness was falling. A Coast Guard rescue swimmer dropped from the helicopter into the water, and assisted in hoisting the three survivors from the overturned hull.
Coast Guard video of the incident, shot with night-vision, shows the semi-submerged boat rolling in the large swells, as the helicopter crew quickly worked to bring the men aboard.
“One survivor coming up… one survivor out of the water… roger… we’ll get the heat running… rotor wash looks good off the boat, I’m going to hold here… roger…”
The next morning, January 10, Sitka Dive Rescue located the bodies of Borbridge and Tuzon inside the submerged boat’s cabin, using a remotely-operated vehicle, or ROV. But Dive Rescue Captain Aaron Dupuis told the jury that high seas, winds, and freezing spray prevented their recovery.
“Given what we knew about the conditions on scene and where the craft was located at that time, we were fairly reluctant to deploy divers up there without the presence of the salvage company to make the boat secure,” Dupuis said. “The Sitka Dive Team does not have the capability to make vessels like that secure, and we rely heavily on the salvage team to do that.”
The Coast Guard cutters Kukui and Douglas Denman subsequently joined the effort, and attempted to track the capsized boat, which was steadily drifting offshore, in seas running between 10 and 15 feet. The Coast Guard’s search and rescue program manager, Jennifer Whitcomb, told the Sitka jury what happened next.
“Despite our efforts to mark it with a buoy and a flashing light and a transponder, we were unable to relocate it,” Whitcomb said. “2:40 a.m. local time on the morning of January 11 was the last time it was seen. And then we sent a helicopter again out to reacquire it at first light the morning of the 11th. And they were unable to find it. But at the time it was 22 miles west of Salisbury Sound.”
Two helicopters from Air Station Sitka flew a search pattern on January 11, joined by two C-130 airplanes from Air Station Kodiak.
“Overall, we searched 447 square miles of ocean and located a debris field,” said Whitcomb. “ There was a deer, a deceased deer, that they found. I believe a seat cushion. So that was the sort of size items that they were able to see during the searches.”
While the Coast Guard sometimes suspends searches when the victims cannot be found, given the evidence from Sitka Dive Rescue’s ROV, the case was closed.
The loss of Tuzon and Borbridge was a blow to the entire community of Sitka. Tuzon was going to graduate from high school this year – and jurors learned that Borbridge, just shy of his nineteenth birthday, was due to become a father. Monday’s presumptive death trial was legal closure for the lives of the two young men, and for the many friends and family in the courtroom that morning, it was another chance to mourn them.
