Just before 8:00 on Sunday morning, New Castle County dispatchers received a distress call from a vessel in the Delaware River south of Artificial Island.
Delaware State Police Aviation’s Trooper 4 was dispatched to the area to search for a 28-foot vessel with five people on board, including three children, that was taking on water.
Marine units from multiple New Castle County and Salem County, New Jersey fire companies, along with the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control (DNREC), were also dispatched on the call.
As the units tried to locate the distressed vessel, word came that Trooper 4 had located the boat just off the Salem Hope Nuclear Power Plant. Marine units arrived moments after Trooper 4’s radio report.
By 8:30, the first marine unit to reach the vessel radioed that they would be escorting the boat to Delaware City and that the boat was under its own power. All other responding crews were recalled.
No injuries were reported.