Collided with M/V Helena
The USCGC White Alder was homeported in New Orleans, Louisiana. The White Alder was proceeding downbound in the Mississippi River after retrieving a number of low water buoys, when she collided, near Bayou Goula (LA), with the upbound M/V Helena, a 455-foot Taiwanese freighter, and sank within approximately one minute. Seventeen (17) of the twenty (20) crewmembers aboard perished; with fifteen (15) being entombed in the White Alder at the bottom of the Mississippi River.
