A crewman on a Bering Sea commercial fishing boat leapt into the deadly cold water and fought rescue efforts before vanishing, authorities said Friday.
"At this point it looks like a suicide," said Thomas Lowy, a state trooper at Dutch Harbor.
The victim was identified as 40-year-old Michael Leo Beaulieu. His commercial fishing license lists his home as Frisco, Colo., but he might have been somewhat transient, Lowy said.
Crewmen aboard the fishing vessel Arctic Fox reported Beaulieu jumped overboard shortly after 11 a.m. Thursday.
The boat, which had been fishing for cod using traps known as pots, was heading to Dutch Harbor and was about 11 miles to the northeast when the man jumped, the U.S. Coast Guard reported.
Beaulieu, who wasn't wearing a survival suit, "refused to swim toward a life ring thrown to him and swam away from a fellow crewman who donned a survival suit and went in to rescue him," a Coast Guard news release said. "The man then reportedly dove and was not seen again."
A Coast Guard helicopter stationed in Cold Bay searched 16 square miles in blowing snow and fog but the crewman wasn't found and the search was suspended at 4:25 p.m. Thursday.
Seas were running at 6 feet and the water was 37 degrees, cold enough to cause hypothermia and death in a matter of minutes.
No foul play is suspected based on interviews with the boat's five other crewmen, who were pretty shaken up, Lowy said.
"They took it pretty hard," he said.
State records list the owner of the 58-foot Arctic Fox as Wahl Fisheries of Reedsport, Ore. The vessel was built in 2006.
Beaulieu didn't leave a suicide note, but he made "some odd comments" to his fellow crewmen that, in retrospect, seem to be signs he was troubled, Lowy said.
Beaulieu was a veteran commercial fisherman who had crewed occasionally on the Arctic Fox for a couple of years, the trooper said.
The way he took his own life is "something I'd never heard of before," Lowy said.
However, Lowy said one of his supervisors in Kodiak knew of a case in which a crewman on a fish-processing vessel died after jumping overboard.
Find Wesley Loy's commercial fishing blog online at adn.com/highliner or call 257-4590.
By WESLEY LOY
wloy@adn.com