Santiago de Compostela, (EFE) indeed the Galician fishing boat that sank in 2022 in Newfoundland.
After this confirmation, the work is now focused on recording the wreck up close to find out more clearly what were the causes that led to the shipwreck on February 15, 2022, in which 21 of the 24 sailors on board lost their lives.
Already on Friday, the discovery of a metallic structure in an area close to where the fishing boat sank aroused multiple hopes among the relatives of the victims.
“It is a very serious issue that touches us in the depths of our being. The Pitanxo is not just a ship within evidence of a judicial process, it is the place where 21 loved ones died and the tomb of the 12 who have disappeared,” the spokesperson for the victims’ relatives, María José, told Efe. of Pazo.
The Ártabro’, which left the port of Vigo on May 17 to the area of the shipwreck to locate the wreck, has a submersible robot that has been in charge of inspecting the area and that today will go down again to the depths to record “as close as possible”, as long as security conditions are respected.
De Pazo has indicated that all the indications point to the fact that the metal structure corresponds to the Pitanxo and that, in the absence of official confirmation from the authorities, it is the sunken wreck.
“Positive” news for families
He added that the finding is “very positive news for all the families and for all the people who were waiting” and considers that knowing this information does not affect the development of the investigation opened by the National Court.
Only three of the 24 crew members survived the sinking of the ‘Villa de Pitanxo’: the skipper, his nephew and a sailor of Ghanaian origin.
The lifeless bodies of nine deceased were rescued, but twelve other sailors are still missing. EFE