VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — After receiving a distress signal, the Coast Guard rescued six people from an overturned fishing boat about 16 miles off the coast of Virginia Beach on Sunday.
A release from the branch said when they couldn't hail the boater who sent the locator beacon, the Fifth District Command Center jumped to action, deploying an air rescue team from Elizabeth City and a boat crew from Station Little Creek.
The team on the helicopter, who had been training nearby, reached the vessel first. They found four people on the hull of the overturned boat, and two people on the nearby Chesapeake Light Tower.
The fishers were loaded onto the helicopter and taken to Elizabeth City, without injury.
James Cifers, the civilian watchstander for the command center, took this opportunity to remind people how important personal locator beacons can be, when ocean conditions take a turn for the worse.
"The owner of the PLB had just purchased his device in June and was the only one on board who had one," Cifers wrote. "This case could have turned out quite different if the owner had not bought and registered his device. We recommend all mariners maintain updated registration and keep these devices on them while underway so we are able to find them quickly and accurately when they need us the most."