Crews search for bodies after fire kills 25 on California dive boat

Divers were scouring for bodies on the wreckage of a scuba diving boat off California on Tuesday, after a fast-moving fire trapped dozens of people below deck, sparking a panicked rescue call from a man gasping, "I can't breathe." Emergency crews found at least 25 bodies after the fire broke out before dawn off Santa Cruz Island on Monday, leaving nine people still missing, the Associated Press reported.

Five of the six-person crew who were above deck on the bridge managed to escape in an inflatable boat. The Coast Guard declined to confirm the figures as authorities launched an investigation into one of the area's worst maritime disasters.

"We are looking for bodies now," said Santa Barbara Fire Department spokeswoman Amber Anderson. In a recording of a desperate call to the Coast Guard, a man is heard gasping for help in the smoky fire.

"Mayday, mayday, mayday!" he said. "That's distress, this is the Coast Guard Sector Los Angeles on channel 1-6, what is your position ... and the number of persons on board? Over," the dispatcher answered.

"Twenty-nine. Twenty-nine POB," said the man in the somewhat inaudible call. "I can't breathe!... Twenty-nine POB." The dispatcher at least twice more requested the GPS location of the vessel but the caller apparently fails to respond.

The boat sank later in the morning and was lying upside down under more than 60 feet (18 meters) of water, police said. Officials said there were a total of 33 passengers and six crew members onboard the Conception, a 75-foot (23 m) boat, when the fire started at about 3:15 a.m. on Monday.

Witnesses reported hearing a number of explosions, but authorities said it was too early to say what caused the fire. Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown said on Monday scuba or propane tanks on the boat may have blown up in the flames. The federal National Transportation Safety Board said it had sent a team of engineers and fire specialists to investigate the blaze.

The diving vessel was chartered by Worldwide Diving Adventures, a Santa Barbara, California, excursion firm. It said on its website the Conception was on a three-day excursion to the Channel Islands and was due back in Santa Barbara at 5 p.m. on Monday. The boat's owner, Truth Aquatics, referred queries about the accident to a joint media center. "This is still an ongoing search and rescue," it said.

Attorney Todd Lochner of the Lochner Law firm in Annapolis, Maryland, who specializes in boating law, said that ships' crews face limited legal responsibilities to rescue passengers. "There is no obligation to stand on the vessel and burn to death," Lochner said. "That's a romantic idea, perhaps of the days of old, that the captain has to go down with the ship."

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