Search continues for 2 men in frigid waters

(CNN) -- Two fishermen remain missing after a commercial fishing vessel went down in frigid, treacherous waters off the Aleutian Islands about 1,400 miles southwest of Anchorage, Alaska.

A search for the two crew members of the 93-foot Katmai resumed at daybreak Friday.

An e-mail sent by the doomed fishing boat to a nearby vessel said it was taking on water in the rear, where the steering was housed, the Coast Guard told The Associated Press on Thursday.

Four of the boat's crew members were rescued and five bodies retrieved Wednesday near the Amchitka Pass, a strait that connects the Bering Sea to the Pacific Ocean.

The names have been withheld pending the notification of families, a Coast Guard statement said.

"What can you say?" said Jeff DeBell, chief financial officer of Katmai Fisheries, which owned the boat.

He told The AP, "We are devastated by what has happened. We are elated there have been survivors. We are just terribly saddened by the ones that are dead and are praying that those that are still in the water are alive." Watch rescue footage from the choppy waters »

The Seattle-based company told the AP the survivors were Capt. Henry Blake and crew members Guy Schroeder, Adam Foster and Harold Attling.

The search began at about 1 a.m. Wednesday when the Coast Guard received an emergency signal from the Katmai, a 93-foot fishing vessel that had been battling 50-knot winds and nearly 20-foot waves.

The signal originated from a wall-mounted satellite positioning device on the Katmai that reacts when it's touched or splashed with water, Coast Guard Petty Officer Levi Read said. Watch a "Deadliest Catch" captain talk about what may have happened on the rough seas »

At about that time, another vessel, the Blue Balard, sent an e-mail to the Coast Guard saying that it received a message from the Katmai that water was flooding its rear compartment. The message also said that the vessel had lost steering.

The Coast Guard tried to e-mail the Balard back but received no response, likely because the seas are remote and Internet access can be spotty, Read said.

Rescuers launched a C-130, a long-range surveillance aircraft, and went straight to the scene twice Wednesday morning, Read said. The boat was nowhere in sight, but the C-130 did spot two strobe lights on top of the water, he said.

By this time, the weather was treacherous and the sky was darkening, according to Read. The C-130, having found no signs of life, dropped two life rafts and headed back, he said.

On the second trip, at 11 a.m., the C-130 and a Jayhawk helicopter found two strobe lights floating in the water, one attached to a survival suit and the other to the emergency device that had first alerted the Coast Guard, Read said. They also found a body, he said.

"We knew the person was from the Katmai because the suit he was wearing had the name of the vessel on it," Read said.

Roughly five hours later, the Coast Guard spotted four men on a life raft, all wearing survival suits.

With the assistance of other vessels, the Courageous and the Patricia Lee, the bodies of four other men were recovered from the water, all wearing survival suits, Read said.

The odds of someone surviving the frigid waters off Alaska's Aleutian Islands is minimal, said Read. Crews usually have survival suits that allow water to seep inside but have a mechanism that traps body heat.

The search for the two remaining men began at 9:30 a.m. Alaska time Thursday, an hour before sunrise there.

"You just couldn't do anything earlier," Read said. "It's darker the farther out you go, and they are really, really out there."

All About Alaska • U.S. Coast Guard • Aleutian Islands