HUNTINGTON — Rescuers may never reach the six men trapped nearly 1,900 feet underground in the Crandall Canyon Mine, federal and mine officials said Monday night.
A panel of experts brought in by the federal Mine Safety and Heath Administration has concluded that the area where the mine collapsed 15 days ago "remains in a state that is structurally unstable," making it too dangerous for rescuers to resume underground efforts to reach the six men.
Mine co-owner Bob Murray, addressing reporters for the first time since a rescue accident Thursday night killed three rescuers and injured six others, said the coal mine may be the miners' final resting place.
"I don't know whether the miners will be found," Murray said, "but I'm not optimistic they'll be found alive."
Miners Kerry Allred, Don Erickson, Luis Hernandez, Carlos Payan, Brandon Phillips and Manuel Sanchez have been trapped nearly 1,900 feet underground since early Aug. 6 when the area of the coal mine where they were working collapsed in a 3.9-magnitude seismic event.
The next effort — and perhaps last hope for finding the trapped miners — is a fifth borehole being drilled into an area where mine officials say the men may have retreated. That hole is expected to punch through the mine cavity by 5 p.m. today, mine officials said.
Crews again will attempt to make contact with the trapped miners using audio and visual equipment. If, like the previous four drilling efforts, it shows no sign of the miners, mine officials will evaluate whether a sixth hole will be drilled, Murray said.
"There was only one way to get them out," he said, "and that was through an underground recovery."
The outspoken and sometimes volatile mine owner had not been seen publicly since Thursday night's rescue tragedy.
Murray explained his absence Monday, saying he's been devastated by the deadly accident.
"When the tragedy occurred Thursday night, I immediately went underground and helped pull the miners out — alive and dead — with my own hands," he said. "It was quite a traumatic experience."
Murray said he has continued attempting to make sure the needs of the miners' families are met. The mine owner said he talked with the families earlier Monday, saying he was as "forthright" and as "compassionate" as he could be under such grim circumstances.
"At some time, the reality must sink in," he said, adding that he was a "messenger (of bad news) they didn't want to hear."
Family members said they're frustrated with Murray and mine officials because of the rescue efforts' lack of results in two weeks.
"We've been asking questions and not getting straight answers," said Cesar Sanchez, Manuel Sanchez's brother.
The families have been mostly silent throughout the two-week ordeal — until this weekend.
"We have been patient," Steve Allred, Kerry Allred's brother, told reporters Monday. "We've been believing and hanging on every word we've been told."
That's not enough anymore, he said. The families are demanding that drilling begin on a wider hole so a rescue capsule can be lowered into the mine and bring the miners out — dead or alive. In 2002, nine miners were lifted to safety after being trapped in the flooded Quecreek mine in Pennsylvania.
Those miners, however, were trapped less than 250 feet underground on flat ground — not nearly the 1,900 feet in a mountain at the Crandall Canyon Mine.
A hole large enough for a rescue capsule will be drilled only if crews find evidence that at least one man is alive, Murray said. The mine owner said a larger drilling unit is on its way to the mine in case that happens.
Chelle Taylor, the sister of a trapped miner, has started an online petition at www.myspace.com/saveour6. Taylor said she plans to send the petition names to government officials, including Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. and President Bush — anyone other than Murray Energy Corp. and federal Mine Safety and Heath Administration officials.
"We figure if we can get enough people to sign the petition ... we might be able to get the hole drilled," Taylor wrote in an e-mail to the Deseret Morning News, "and then we can have our closure for this."
Rescuers have tried for two weeks to contact the trapped miners by drilling boreholes in the areas where the miners are believed to be trapped. Microphones and video equipment have been lowered into the holes, but rescuers have neither seen nor heard the trapped men.
Underground efforts to reach the miners have been on hold since Thursday night, when local coal miners Dale Black, 49, and Brandon Kimber, 29, and mine safety inspector Gary Jensen, 53, died after a 1.6 magnitude mountain "bump" hit, blowing out the mine's ribs and burying rescue workers in debris. A viewing for Black was held at a Price funeral home Monday night.
Murray said mining operations will not resume in the section of the mine where the men were killed and the six miners are trapped.
"We'll seal off those areas," he said.
He expects mining will continue in other areas of the mine, though he said it will no longer be called the Crandall Canyon Mine.
Murray said he has been in discussions with his staff about the mine's future and ways the miners who may be entombed there — as well as those who gave their lives trying to save them — could be honored, though he declined to elaborate.
E-mail: jpage@desnews.com