Final hole into mine finds no sign of life

HUNTINGTON, Utah – The latest hole drilled into a collapsed mine where six men are trapped broke through an area too small for the men to survive, a lawyer for several of the men’s families said Saturday.

“The only thing they told us is there is no void where the sixth hole is; there is no space,” attorney Colin King said after a meeting between the families and mine officials.

King said the families were disappointed by the news.

“They are distraught. They’re very frustrated for good reason,” he said.

The Crandall Canyon Mine’s co-owner has said this hole, the sixth drilled more than 1,500 feet into the mountain, will be the last effort to find a sign of the men, who may not have survived the massive cave-in Aug. 6.

However, King said, mine officials did not rule out the possibility of drilling a seventh hole, but did not provide any specific plans or possible locations for another hole.

“They left the possibility open that they were possibly considering another hole,” King said. “It didn’t sound like that was uppermost on their list of to-dos.”

Drilling on the sixth hole was completed late Saturday afternoon, the U.S. Department of Labor said, reaching a depth of more than 1,700 feet. Department of Labor spokesman Matthew Faraci said the same testing done on previous holes – air samples, signaling in hopes of a response from the miners and dropping a video camera into the mine shaft – would be done. An update was expected this afternoon.

Previous holes have yielded only grainy video images and poor air samples, and efforts to signal the miners have been met with silence. Tunneling into the mine was abandoned after another collapse killed three rescue workers and injured six others on Aug. 16.

Families and friends of the missing miners have pressed for the efforts to continue, if only to find the bodies of Kerry Allred, Don Erickson, Luis Hernandez, Carlos Payan, Brandon Phillips and Manuel Sanchez.

“At this point, we’re very disappointed at the Murray Energy group of companies, which seem to have given up on these people in the mine,” said King.

Federal officials and mine company executives have said the mountain’s instability makes it too dangerous to drill a hole wide enough for a person-size capsule unless there are signs of life.