3 dead, 4 injured in Boat Capsize on Far Side of Catalina Island

- Three people were killed and four others were critically injured when their 15-foot boat capsized Saturday on the far side of Catalina Island, authorities said. The Coroner’s Office identified the three men killed as Young Joon Park, 64, and Kyung Hwam Kim, 47, both of Los Angeles, and Jason Jung Noh, 62, of Buena Park, said Capt. John Kades of the coroner’s office. Everyone on the boat was Korean or Korean American, and they were out fishing in a boat so small that 4-6 foot waves capsized it.

Firefighters and paramedics were dispatched to the location at 9:32 a.m., according to a county fire department dispatcher.

A witness reported that a 15-foot skiff with seven people on board had overturned near Salta Verde Point on the backside of the island, according to Sondra-Kay Kneen of the U.S. Coast Guard. Waves in the area were reported to be between four and six feet.

A good Samaritan rescued two boaters from the water and reported seeing another boater on the rocks. A U.S. Coast Guard helicopter crew rescued the person from the rocks, Kneen said.

Baywatch Isthmus and Baywatch Avalon recovered three bodies from the water, and a Catalina Island Conservancy officer located the seventh person on the beach, she said.

The Coast Guard transported one person to Long Beach Memorial Medical Center and Los Angeles County Fire Department paramedics took the other three people to area hospitals, Kneen said.

The four survivors sustained critical injuries, said a Los Angeles County Fire department dispatcher.

Two critically injured boaters were fighting for their lives Sunday, but three others in a group’s overturned small boat in the waters off Catalina Island were dead.

Two others in the capsized craft may have sustained some injuries, but they were not in critical condition.