On November 17, 2012, at approximately 1700 hours a search began involving Utah State Parks and Recreation, Salt Lake County Search and Rescue, Unified Police Department (UPD), Unified Fire and Medical, Medical Examiner, Department of Public Safety helicopter Star 7 and Air Med.  The rescue turned into a recovery of two adult males.

On the above date and time, Great Salt Lake Marina Harbor Master was notified by a duck hunter that he was worried about a flat bottom boat still out on the lake.  At that time HARBOR MASTER went and got a, "spotting scope," and made visual contact with the boat.  HARBOR MASTER saw the boat and noticed that the bow of the boat was up and it was moving west towards the marina.  At approximately 1715 hours HARBOR MASTER noticed that he couldn't see the boat any longer.  At that time he notified me, Assistant Park Manager of the Great Salt Lake Marina State Park, about the situation at hand.  HARBOR MASTER and Park manager went to the rescue boat, Rescue 1, and left the Marina mouth at approximately 1721 hours to perform a, "hasty search," for the boat. 

Rescue one headed east  towards the Lee Creek area to search for the boat.  At the time there were 1 to 2 foot waves, wind was 0 to 18 knots and the water temperature was 47 degrees.  There was a mix of rain and snow which caused the FORWARD LOOKING INFRA RED (FLIR) to be obscure.  During the search at approximately 1810 hours we noticed a heat source on the FLIR and went towards what we thought was the boat with the subjects aboard.  It turned out to be a group of pilings near the Salt Air.  

At approximately 1835 hours HARBOR MASTER and PARK MANAGER believed that the boat could have made it past them without them seeing it.  The decision was made to return to the Marina to see if the subjects were there.  In the parking lot the vehicle was found with the trailer attached and no one around.  The decision was made by HARBOR MASTER and PARK MANAGER to drive the frontage road and see if any of the subjects were able to walk out to the road. 

HARBOR MASTER got into his state vehicle and drove east on the frontage road.  At approximately 1840 hours HARBOR MASTER found one of the subjects, walking down the road towards the Marina.  HARBOR MASTER picked up subject and asked what was happening.

Statement of victim SUBJECT:

SUBJECT told HARBOR MASTER that he had to swim to shore and then walk to the road.  SUBJECT said that the boat had capsized and that there were two others still with the boat.  SUBJECT said that one of the guys couldn't swim and the other one was a poor swimmer.  He said that he tried to have them swim to shore with him but they wouldn't.  SUBJECT said that he left them with a life jacket and swam to shore.  

At 1845 hours,  HARBOR MASTER made contact with PARK MANAGER informing him to get Star 7 ( Department of Public Safety helicopter) up and going.  I called State Parks and Recreation Lieutenant (Lt.) and asked him to call dispatch for Star 7 and also informing him of the situation.  At that time LT informed dispatch what was going on and that Salt Lake County Search and Rescue needed to be notified and asked for Star 7 to come out to help with the search.  Park Ranger was also called out to help with the land search.  LT told Ranger to stay in the area where SUBJECT was found in case the other two victims were able to walk out as well.  LT also called seasonal Deputy Park Ranger to help look for the victims on the south tip of Antelope Island.

At approximately 1900 hours HARBOR MASTER and PARK MANAGER boarded rescue 1 with a few volunteers to go out and conduct a grid search for the remaining two victims.  The coordinates of the search were as follows:   (datum WGS 84)
Magna                         