Boat crash victim still missing<br /><br />BY KRISTA CHAMBERS <br />Holland Sentinel Writer<br /><br /><br />As search efforts continue today for the missing person in a fatal boat crash near Holland Pier Saturday, officials are dealing with conditions on Lake Michigan that have made the recovery difficult. <br /><br /> <br />Click here for larger view <br />The crash occurred when a 42-foot Outerlimits GTX power boat from Rhode Island flipped over about two miles southwest of Holland State Park, ejecting the four passengers inside and claiming the life of John Desousa Jr., 20, from Bristol, R.I. <br /><br />Mike Scaffidi, 42, from Hartland, Wis., remains missing and is presumed drowned, said Sgt. Todd Wagner of the Allegan County Sheriff's Department. <br /><br />"We're searching one square mile of the lake," he said. "It's a tough time between water temperatures, water clarity and depth. With Lake Michigan, it's never a good, easy find." <br /><br />The third day of the recovery effort began early this morning. Rescue crews from the Coast Guard, Allegan County and Ottawa County Sheriff's departments and State Police were to use a sonar scan to recover Scaffidi, Wagner said. <br /><br />"We have an area that looks promising," he said after the search ended Sunday at dusk. "It's just outside the area where the crash took place." <br /><br />The boat's owner and operator, 62-year-old David Shannon Morse of Los Gatos, Calif., who authorities said was driving the vessel, and the boat's throttleman, 44-year-old Robert William Russell, of Duvall, Wash., were rescued soon after the crash Saturday morning and taken to Holland Hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. <br /><br />Russell was released, but no information was available Sunday about Morse's condition. Morse was listed as being in fair condition Saturday. Scaffidi was wearing a personal flotation device at the time of the crash, but it was torn off by the impact of the water and was found floating near the crash site, authorities said. <br /><br />Making recovery conditions more difficult was the disturbance of the scene. A civilian boater towed the craft toward shore to prevent it from sinking Saturday, Wagner said. <br /><br />"They got it from the crash site to the pier head before we took over," he said. "It's more difficult because when things are left in place, you know where to connect the dots." <br /><br />Witnesses said Saturday that it appeared the boat made a drastic left turn near Holland Pier and flipped, creating a wall of white-water spray. <br /><br />"The water just shot straight up and was at least 50 to 60 feet high, and that's when you knew something was bad," said Mitch Stellin, a Holland resident who watched the crash from his 20-foot inflatable boat and was first on the scene afterward. "When we first got there, they said someone was still underwater and we started looking down and around and picking up junk to see if someone was attached." <br /><br />Stellin said he used a swim mask to look under the surface of the water to try to find Scaffidi, but was unable to see anything. <br /><br />Authorities Sunday were speaking with Scaffidi's family, who had come from Wisconsin, to try to soothe their anxiety. <br /><br />"We're spending time with the family," Wagner said. "We took them out to the crash site to give them some sense of closure." <br /><br />Although Desousa was alert when taken from the water, he died during resuscitation efforts by the U.S. Coast Guard, Wagner said. <br /><br />Desousa's mother, Cidalia Silva, called him a hardworking man who had enjoyed being near the water as a boy. <br /><br />"My son was a good kid, a very good kid," she told WPRI-TV in Rhode Island. <br /><br />The crash happened during a charity boat event called Smoke on the Water Poker Run, in which about 118 boats made stops at locations on land and in the water to collect cards for a poker hand, said event spokeswoman Marilyn DeMartini. The event, which is not a race, is based in Grand Haven, and boaters take a 141-mile course with stops in South Haven, Holland, Muskegon and White Lake. <br /><br />"Safety is top priority of these events," she said. "No alcohol was involved, and there were lifejackets. It was a very unfortunate accident, and we still don't know what caused it." <br /><br />Race organizers made an announcement about the accident when event participants returned to Grand Haven for lunch around noon. Most boats continued on and finished the event. Later in the evening, over $10,000 in donations was collected for the families of the victims. <br /><br />The boat was traveling from Grand Haven to Holland at about 9:40 a.m. when the driver overcompensated for a missed turn, slowing from about 110 mph to about 70 mph, Lt. Craig Lawrance of Coast Guard Group Grand Haven said. <br /><br />It's still early to determine if criminal charges will be filed in the crash, Wagner said. <br /><br />"It's too difficult to tell if this was a freak accident or if negligence was involved," he said. <br /><br />The Associated Press, Tribune Sports Editor Matt DeYoung and Holland staff writer John Charles Robbins contributed to this article.
