NORTH SEA:A major rescue operation to save a teenage boy, his father and three other men who went missing after an oil rig tug suddenly capsized in the North Sea was called off last night after final hopes of finding survivors were extinguished.
The 15-year-old boy was on board the Bourbon Dolphin oil rig handling vessel with his father, Odne Remoy, on a week-long work experience voyage, when the vessel suddenly overturned in an apparently freak accident during a routine manoeuvre.
Seven survivors were rescued and three dead crewmen were recovered within half an hour of the incident 75 miles northwest of Shetland after an operation was mounted by RAF helicopters, Royal Navy divers from Faslane submarine base and an unmanned mini-submarine.
Five people, including the boy, were assumed to have been trapped in the 2,500-tonne vessel, leaving rescuers to pin their hopes on the "slim chance" they had found pockets of air in the upturned hull. But yesterday afternoon, amid rapidly worsening weather, the Shetland coast guard officially called off the search. It remains unclear whether the five bodies are still on board the tug, but divers had been unable to penetrate the wreck because of concerns that it might suddenly sink.
The disaster has traumatised the small island community of Heroy on the west coast of Norway, where the teenager and his father, believed to have been the captain of Bourbon Dolphin, had lived.