Kristal Black, the woman who went missing following a boating accident near West End on Sunday has been found.
This was confirmed in a statement by the Royal Virgin Islands Police Force (RVIPF) at around 2:29 pm.
It said, “Police can confirm that the body of the missing female was found close to where the boat sank between Little Thatch and Frenchman’s Cay.”
This is the second confirmed causality from the accident. The first is a six-year-old child.
The news comes after the Operations Manager of the Virgin Islands Search and Rescue (VISAR) Mr. Philip Aspinall confirmed the discovery of the speed boat during an interview with 284News early Tuesday morning.
He said the vessel was found near the area of the accident – between Frenchman’s Cay and Little Thatch – deep beneath the surface of the ocean.
“We discovered the wreckage in more or less the site of the accident from the witness report. The boat is on the bottom and in a hundred plus feet of water, so it’s very dark down there, the sun doesn’t penetrate that far, so visibility is next to nothing,” he stated at the time.
He added, “So the guys are having to do it very painstakingly and obviously it is very deep so each individual diver can only spend about 20 minutes down there before they have to come up and adjust again. So we’re rotating a lot of divers to keep people at the bottom all of the time. But visibility is a problem, it’s just so dark down there.”
Meanwhile, the Royal Virgin Islands Police Force (RVIPF) said it is still investigating the circumstances that led to the boat capsizing.
Initial police investigations indicate that while crossing the waters between Jost Van Dyke and West End around 7 pm Sunday night, the vessel in question overturned near Little Thatch causing all 10 of its occupants to be thrown overboard.
“Of the 10 occupants onboard, seven were taken to the Dr D Orlando Smith Hospital. One of the seven, a six-year-old female, was pronounced dead upon arrival at the hospital. Five are still being treated [and] one was discharged. A search party to include Marine Police, Virgin Islands Search and Rescue, and local mariners began immediately looking for the missing female. The U.S. Coast Guard and St. John Rescue also joined the search at sunrise this morning to the east and west of the site. Thus far, there has been no sighting of the missing female,” the RVIPF reported.
