Only 1 still missing from deadly dive boat fire in Calif.
SANTA BARBARA, Calif. — Only one person remained missing Wednesday after searchers recovered 33 bodies from the charred underwater wreckage of a dive boat that caught fire off the Southern California coast and sank on Labor Day.
Among the victims were an engineer for Apple who went on the trip with his wife and daughter to celebrate the teen’s 17th birthday, a special effects designer for Disney, a nature photographer, a nurse and a physics teacher from Northern California who was with his 26-year-old daughter.
Five crew members, including the captain, managed to escape the boat after Monday’s pre-dawn fire that engulfed the boat as the victims slept below decks near the island of Santa Cruz during a three-day scuba diving excursion. The vessel eventually sank and overturned, making the recovery of bodies challenging.
The only crew member to die was 26-year-old Allie Kurtz, who quit her corporate job at Paramount Pictures to work on dive boats and had recently been promoted to deckhand.
She was sleeping with the other divers below deck when flames moved quickly through the 75-foot vessel, blocking a narrow stairway and an escape hatch.
