"Go Fast" Boat Crash Claims Two Lives

MIAMI (CBS4) ―Two men are dead and two others are hospitalized after a high-speed crash involving two, expensive "go fast" boats.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission says the boats collided with each other around 1 p.m. about a mile east of Matheson Hammock near the Biscayne Channel.

It was a sobering site at the Matheson Hammock Park and Marina as the bodies of the two men who lost their lives were brought back to a pier and were kept behind a yellow tarpaulin, pending removal by the Miami-Dade Medical Examiner's Office.

"We are trying to determine why these boats were going so fast," said FWC spokesman Jorge Pino. "We don't know if they were racing. But I can tell you that they were going at a high rate of speed. We are looking into whether the six people involved knew each other. We believe there were three people on each boat and they may side swiped each other."

"Here you are with the holidays and we have a family tragedy affecting two families," said Pino. "We want the message to get out that you have to be careful when you are boating."

"There is no speed limit when you are on the open sea outside controlled conditions," said Pino,"but you have the responsibility to be very careful."

Chopper 4 was there as one man was hoisted from one of the boats into a rescue helicopter. He was taken to Jackson Memorial Hospital with head injuries and was reported to be in critical condition.

Another man was taken to Mercy Hospital with minor injuries.

Pino said the men were not being identified, but two sources have told CBS4 News that one of the men who died was Steven Posner of Miami Beach.

Lt. Mark Houghtaling of Miami-Dade Fire Rescue and his crew members rushed to the scene.

"I've been on a lot of rescues," said Houghtaling. "And this was serious. We train for situations like this. But we do have limited resources. We had just four people on the rescue boat but we do the best we can. As always in situations like this, we are concerned because speed is such an issue."

There were some tense moments at the crash site. One man was rescued after he was missing for a short time after falling off one of the boats.

CBS4's David Sutta contributed to this report.