Recovery effort continues for missing Lynn woman

A U.S. Coast Guard boat created a safety zone for State Police divers scouring the waters off Plum Island Thursday where a Lynn woman was swept from a sandbar Tuesday.Marinna Khon, 22, was wading in the Merrimack River where it pours into the Atlantic Ocean when the group that she was with apparently became trapped by the incoming tide. Khon’s friends were rescued by Good Samaritan boaters but she was not.An extensive search operation by boat, jet plane and helicopter became a recovery mission by Wednesday. The Coast Guard planned to use sonar in an effort to locate the woman’s body.”The decision to end the search for Ms. Khon is a very difficult one,” said Cmdr. Nathan Knapp, the deputy of response at Coast Guard Sector Boston. “As a life-saving service, it’s never easy to end a search with someone still missing at sea. Our thoughts are with her family and friends during this difficult time.”Knapp said a Coast Guard 47-foot boat crew will remain on scene providing a safety zone for the Massachusetts State Police Dive Team. Coast Guard crews searched nearly 120 square miles in an effort to find the woman, the commander said.Khon, a 2006 Lynn Classical High School graduate, just received her bachelor’s degree at Syracuse University and had returned home to Lynn to seek job opportunities in the Boston area.She and a group of her friends, mostly from Lynn and Revere, were apparently caught unaware by the rising tide at approximately 5 p.m. on Tuesday. Good Samaritan boaters in small vessels, an area harbormaster and local police were able to rescue seven others washed off the treacherous sand bar.Those rescued included Hoya Nguyen, 22, of Revere; Rahtha Saygnarath, 24, of Lynn, co-owner of the Foot Traffik athletic shoe store in Saugus; Thanada Saygnarath, 21, of Lynn.The young men and women had planned a day of fishing from the beach and touch football on the sand, hoping to enjoy the unseasonably warm day that pushed temperatures into the 90s.Newburyport Police Sgt. Peter Finnegan said the friends were in knee-deep water amid calm seas when the conditions changed, pulling them into the rush of water and out to sea.