Authorities: Passaic River distress call a hoax

Thursday, October 11, 2012    Last updated: Thursday October 11, 2012, 2:17 PM

FAIRFIELD — Authorities have declared a distress call on the Passaic River to be a hoax and have ended their search for a boat that reported had been stranded.

CHRIS PEDOTA/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

A NJ State Police boat searching earlier for a sign of boaters in distress before the search was called off.

A rescue operation started Wednesday night after a U.S. Coast Guard station in Staten Island received a radio transmission that a boat occupied by three people on the Passaic River in Fairfield had become disabled and was taking on water, Fairfield Deputy Chief Anthony Manna said Thursday.

The transmission was received at 9:45 p.m. Wednesday. After three-hour searches on Wednesday night and Thursday morning, Manna said no boats or trailers had not been found. Police also received no missing-persons reports.

"We found nothing to indicate this was an actual incident, so we are classifying it as an unfounded hoax," Manna said.

Police notified the Essex County Prosecutor's Office and are launching a criminal investigation to find out who made the call, he said.

Sondra Rivera, a spokeswoman for the US Coast Guard, said Thursday that the caller said he was in a 16-foot vessel with three people aboard and that the battery had died and the vessel was taking on water.

The caller said he was on the Passaic River near Fairfield, Rivera said. The call was lost before it could be traced, she said.

Firefighters from the Fairfield, Little Falls and Lincoln Park, and the State Police Aviation Unit, started searching the 11 miles of the river that runs through the township before suspending the search around 12:30 p.m. on Thursday, Manna said.

The Coast Guard mounted a massive search operation on June 11 after it received an emergency radio transmission about a yacht explosion off Sandy Hook. Twenty-one people were initially believed to have abandoned ship. The call was later determined to be a hoax. Coast Guard officials believed there were similarities between the July hoax and another incident in Texas.

Email: greenj@northjersey.com

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