Lawyer says mixup on beacon registration delayed NJ fishing boat search

Mixup may have delayed search in NJ fishing deaths

CAPE MAY, N.J. — An analyst says a mixup delayed the search in the deadly sinking of a fishing boat off New Jersey by nearly an hour and a half.

Earlier testimony in the hearing to establish the cause of the disaster revealed that an emergency radio beacon had an improperly recorded registration number.

The number was off by one digit when it was added to a federal database by a contractor for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Federal search analyst Don Karlson said Thursday that when the signal was received there was no word on which boat it was or whom to call on shore.

Rescuers couldn’t zero in on the boat until a lower-orbiting satellite picked up a signal.

Six people died.

(This version CORRECTS the name of the analyst to Karlson, instead of Carlson.)