from mission viejo, california, charter a fishing boat. on this overcast day in alaska inland, the water is providing a bountiful catch for the six tourists on board this steel-hulled fishing boat. here s another one coming up. but their luck begins to change from big fish to big trouble. everybody get one of those on, please. turns out the motor located under the deck has malfunctioned and broken apart. its metal pieces ripping a hole in the boat. we were just having fun with the camera back and forth. and then it evolved into much more. i just kept the camera running. one of the diesels sheered a shaft and we re taking on water. electrical problem, we lost the radio for communication.
plug out of the raft. so, at that point, i knew, you know, now our time is limited. tensions are rising and so is the 40 degree water. inside the raft. hypothermia is a grave concern. and there s more danger in store. good thing the water s not rough today. within minutes of abandoning ship, the stern starts to shift and sink and the ship rears vertically up and heads towards them. look out, you guys. it s coming this way. the bow was sticking straight up and i said, hey, watch out. you know, the boat is going to come this way. i thought it was going to swamp us. irene is sinking. push the water in, don t do that. we re taking on water, guys. there was a couple of the passengers actually one in particular that she was really getting uneasy. so, we tried, we tried to calm
to make matters worse, the gps is shot and there s no chance of using the ship s radio to call for help. loading up the zodiac with some air and we re all going to pile in there. this is really unbelievable. can you hear me? bob calmly narrates the scene as emergency preparations are executed. meanwhile, his brother, john, is trying to make a distress call from his cell phone. he climbs high on the boat, but reception is still bad. we re sinking. we re taking on water, we re out on a vessel. seven miles south of flat island. seven miles south of flat island. we need something, now. we knew this thing was not going to stop leaking. i mean, it was going down. by now, all six passengers and two crew onboard realize they only have minutes to abandon ship. hello. hello. we re all going to get in that.
possible to survive something as tall as a three-story building just mowing us over out on the middle of a river. only a few minutes go by before kevin, his daughter, ruby, and everyone else onboard realize the inevitable. we started grabbing for life preservers and such chaos on there. and, you know, my poor little daughter didn t have any idea what to do. so, i did as best i could to get us to where we could at least have a chance and i look up and i see the first mate already jumped off the boat and he s already swimming for it. i m like, oh, my gosh. kevin and ruby don t have time to put on a life jacket. the barge slams into the duck boat, as if swallowing it whole. people were screaming, people were barking orders at each
kind of freeze for a couple seconds. some people like this woman seem almost paralyzed with fear. it was heartbreaking to watch this woman and she was terrified and very unstable. took about two or three of the crewmen to actually help her down. but after several hours, most are safely onshore. we were like one of the first boats that got off and it was probably two, three hours after that that the rest of our group got off. they were the very last boat. the classmates and their chaperons reunite on land. we were watching as the boat was sinking. in the beginning when we first got off, we saw it move all over the harbor because all the currents were dragging it all over the place. by the time we were able to get on the rescue boat back to athens, it was probably around 4:00, 5:00 in the morning and at that point, our ship was completely on its side and it was going down.