7th borehole at Utah mine leads to rubble

A seventh borehole entered the Crandall Canyon Mine Thursday.

But that's where the good news ended for the families of six miners who have been trapped for more than three weeks.

By 5 p.m. Thursday, family members of missing miners Luis Hernandez, Manuel Sanchez, Don Erickson, Carlos Payan, Brandon Phillips and Kerry Allred were given the "discouraging" news that the No. 7 hole into a supposed safe area called the "kitchen" did not reveal any signs of life.

Instead, workers discovered 7 feet of rubble from the floor up and only a 2 1/2-foot void, or space, between the top of the rubble pile and the ceiling. A camera lowered into the hole showed that it was filling up with mud and water.

"It's very discouraging to hear what happened in the kitchen," said Colin King, a Salt Lake attorney hired by the families of the trapped miners. He said family members appear to be ready to take the next step of "saying goodbye" to their loved ones.

"I think we're coming to the end of the line," King said.

Earlier Thursday, Mine Safety and Health Administration officials announced that the man who investigated West Virginia's Sago Mine disaster will lead the investigation into what caused the Aug. 6 collapse at Crandall Canyon.

Richard Gates is the regulatory agency's district manager in Birmingham, Ala., and will head the team that also includes MSHA officials with experience in retreat mining, roof control and other aspects of mining. The state of Utah also has been invited to participate.

Even as the investigation begins, Denver-based U.S. Department of Labor public affairs director Rich Kulczewski said the plan is to return to the fourth borehole to try to lower into the mine a $50,000 robot outfitted with a camera. There's about a 90 percent chance, he noted, that the robot won't make it all the way and that it could be lost in the effort, which was supposed to be under way Thursday night and into this morning.

That was the same news Kulczewski gave family members at a 5 p.m. briefing at the Desert Edge Christian Chapel.

"On the whole, they were pretty quiet," he said about the families' reaction. "They're strong people — they've been through so much."

At least one family member asked about going into the seventh borehole with a pump to draw out the water and mud. "We said we would look into that," Kulczewski said about his response.