Crashed boat was nearly pulled off the water hours before accident

Tuesday, March 24, 1998 | 11:43 a.m.

All fingers pointed to an 18-year-old man; the others said they were too drunk to do it.

Less than eight hours later, the speedboat - going at least 50 mph - slammed into the shore early Monday, killing four people and seriously injuring three others at Lake Mead National Recreation Area in far northwestern Arizona.

Investigators were still trying Tuesday to determine if alcohol was a factor. And the National Park Service was defending the decision of its rangers to allow the speedboat to remain on the lake despite knowing that others aboard were drinking heavily.

Supervisory park ranger Paul Crawford, who was in charge of the rangers who stopped the boat Sunday afternoon, said he had no regrets. The official policy is to allow a boat to remain on the water if someone is sober enough to drive it, he said.

"We do this all the time," he said.

Pulling a boat off the lake costs its owner fees for towing and storage, and is an inconvenience all around, he said. When law enforcement agents arrest someone for boating under the influence, the easiest way to deal with the passengers who remain on board is to find a replacement pilot, Crawford said.

Ten million people each year use the lake, which forms the Arizona-Nevada border just east of Las Vegas.

The rangers pulled over the boat in the Lake Mead Marina late Sunday afternoon, responding to a report that an intoxicated pilot had hit another boat, causing minor damage, and then sped off. The pilot, Aaron Miquette, 25, of Las Vegas, was taken into custody by Nevada Division of Wildlife officers on charges of boating under the influence and hit-and-run.

That left National Park Service Rangers to decide what to do with the boat and the other passengers. Crawford said there were six to eight of them.

They conducted a field sobriety test on the 18-year-old and determined that he had not been drinking, Crawford said. Michael Yost, owner of the 45-foot boat, said that he was too intoxicated to take the helm, Crawford said.

The 18-year-old, who has not been identified, left the boat sometime after he took the wheel, said Karen Whitney, a National Park Service spokeswoman. She said investigators have learned that those who remained on the boat were seen drinking at 9 or 10 p.m.

Yost was driving the boat when it crashed, Whitney said. It wasn't found for 10 hours.

The Park Service issued a statement late Tuesday night saying investigators had talked with Yost and that he told them he made a wrong turn as the boating party was returning from a visit to Hoover Dam late Sunday night. The Park Service said the wrong turn resulted in the boat running aground on the shore at a 45-degree angle near midnight.

The service noted the lake's navigational aids include lighted buoys for night operation. Whitney, reached later, said it was unclear how he came to mistake the turn but added, "Even our rangers will tell you it's easy at night to become disoriented."

"Yost has been on the lake quite a bit," Whitney said. "Our rangers are familiar with him because he has a boat at one of the marinas. They say he's experienced and knows the lake well."

Whitney said the other survivors were too sedated for investigators to interview but that they would be questioned later.

No blood-alcohol tests were conducted on any of the seven in the crash, because the wrecked boat and its passengers were not discovered for so long, Whitney said. The time lapse would likely have rendered the tests useless, she said.

Whether alcohol was a factor "is not something we have pursued because there's no legal way of determining without blood tests," Whitney said. She said she had yet to learn from investigators whether Yost had been questioned about drinking.

Earlier Whitney had referred other questions to Gary Sebate, chief investigator of the crash for the National Park Service. He didn't return repeated telephone calls Tuesday.

Yost, 44, of Henderson, Nev., was one of the three survivors. His wife, Camille, 41, was among the dead. They are the only two people investigators are sure were on the boat when it was stopped Sunday afternoon and when it crashed.

The other survivors were identified as Richard Reynierse, 24, and Ron Surls, 27, both of Las Vegas. Yost and Surls were upgraded from serious to fair condition Tuesday; Reynierse remained in serious condition.

The Park Service has released the names of two others killed in the wreck: Eugene C. Carson III, 27, of North Las Vegas, and Michael J. Kelley, 26, of Las Vegas. The name of a woman killed in the crash was withheld Tuesday pending notification of relatives.

Lake Mead, which is formed on the Colorado River by mammoth Hoover Dam, is a magnet for recreational boaters. It is 110 miles long and covers 550 square miles - twice the size of Rhode Island.