FIVE French fishermen were still missing and presumed dead this morning after their boat went down 15 miles north-west of Alderney yesterday.

It is thought that their 14-metre wooden longliner Kleine Familie – a familiar sight in local waters – may have been run down by a much larger vessel in one of the busiest shipping areas in the world.

A sixth man, a 20-year-old, was rescued by helicopter after a major air and sea search including the Channel Islands Air Search aircraft Lions’ Pride was launched.

He was found in the vessel’s life-raft after firing a red distress flare and was picked up by a passing Dutch ship.

It was revealed this morning that it was his first trip to sea as an apprentice fisherman.

The French authorities said today that initial examinations of wreckage found in the area suggested that the Cherbourg-registered vessel may have been in a collision.

The Klein Familie was in the local news in December 2003 when two Guernsey fisheries officials who boarded the vessel were abducted and taken to France against their will.

The skipper, Thierry Goueslain, was fined £7,000 by Guernsey’s Magistrate’s Court for offences arising from that incident of failing to comply with the officers and fishing illegally in Guernsey waters.

In May 2002 Mr Goueslain was fined £2,000 in the same court for failing to fill in his logbook.