An Air Force radar tower with twenty-seven men aboard collapsed under gale winds and high waves and sank eighty miles southeast of here last night.
A Navy Task force was searching for survivors, but none had been found by early this morning.
A life preserver, a mattress and several large oil and Diesel fuel slicks were floating on the water where the giant platform had stood.
A Coast Guard spokesman said that the chances for survivors among the fourteen servicemen and thirteen civilians "looked bad." The civilians were repairing damage to the tower from Hurricane Donna.
The Air Force said, "the tower is presumed lost." It added that the tower had been equipped with life boats.
Navy, Coast Guard and Air Force units had been searching through the early part of the night after a distress signal was received from the tower, a triangular structure on piles used for air defense.
Winds Up To 70 Knots
A murky overcast lowered visibility to 500 feet and the high winds - 50 to 70 knots - made it difficult for the aircraft to determine whether the tower was still standing.
A naval task force, commanded by the aircraft carrier Wasp, which had been steaming in the area, learned of its collapse.
As the ships churned through thirty-five foot waves to the spot - 39 degrees 48 minutes latitude, 72 degrees 40 minutes longitude - there was brief hope as two lights were spotted through the fog and driving sleet.
The lights, however, turned out to be those of a fishing boat that had come to the scene after hearing the Coast Guards appeal for rescue craft.
One of the destroyers in the force spotted gasoline and Diesel oil slicks in the area later. After an additional search the Naval force radioed Coast Guard Air and Sea Rescue headquarters in New York that "the tower has collapsed."
The ships then deployed to seek survivors.
At 1:05 A. M. the Coast Guard abandoned its emergency restriction on ship broadcasts in the area - a restriction imposed to permit unimpeded direction of the rescue operation.
At 1:22, the Coast Guard warned ships in the vicinity to proceed with caution because of danger from wreckage of the collapsed tower, which was 187 feet long on each side of its three sides. At the same time it urged vessels to keep a lookout for possible survivors.
The tower was one of three operated as part of the United States air-defense warning system by the 4604th Squadron.
The lost tower, known as No. 4, had been partly evacuated last September after the winds of Hurricane Donna had damaged its supports.
The first distress call from the towers crew was received at 7:25 P. M. yesterday, when the signal Mayday - an internationally used sign of extreme distress - was received at Otis Air Force Base on Cape Cod, the home of the 4604th Squadron.
At 8:01, a report of a brief verbal communication with the tower was relayed to the base, but there was some question as to whether the report was genuine. In any event, there was no further word from the tower.
Sixty-one servicemen on the tower weathered the hurricane in September, but most of them were taken off Nov. 17 when it was discovered that the underwater bracings had been damaged.<
The tower was battered by winds of eighty-five knots and gusts of 100 knots and by thirty foot seas during that storm.
Evacuation of the tower had been requested by the Air Force at the time of the storm. Two Coast Guard cutters, the Campbell and Tamaroa, were sent to the scene, but the seas were so rough that small rescue boats could not be launched.
When the hurricane subsided it was unnecessary to remove the crew, but about four weeks later the Air Force announced that it had ordered a temporary evacuation as a precautionary move. It was reported at the time that there was little or no danger to the tower from the winds.
Past storms have buffeted other towers and in some cases have marooned men aboard for several days.
Last January the military supply ship Sagitta smashed against one of the radar islands in rough seas off Cape Cod while unloading supplies. The tower was not damaged, but the ship took on water and had to keep all pumps working to get back to Boston.
The towers, part of the United States and Canada's warning system are called Texas Towers because they were copied from the offshore oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico.
Tower 4 was sixty-seven feet high, and domes on the top deck housed the radar systems that operated on an around the clock alert. It was equipped with a heliport.
It had been estimated that each of the towers cost about $750,000, excluding the radar equipment. There are three decks, with the lower enclosed decks used for living and recreation areas.
On one deck the men have a big recreation room with pool and ping-pong tables. On another deck is a gymnasium. A typical tower also includes a woodworking shop, a ceramic shop and an electronics hobby shop.
The atmosphere has been described as like that in a big Navy ship, except that the men call themselves "troops" instead of a crew.
The men who live and work on the towers are mostly young and generally specialists in electronics.
After forty-five days on the tower, a man is brought ashore by helicopter or ship for fifteen days leave. He continues this forty-five day on and fifteen off routine until he has accumulated 365 days of duty, when he is transferred to a less isolated post.
