Two men have been plucked from the ocean as sharks circled after being spotted by an Australian television helicopter in a dramatic rescue involving five aircraft and five boats.
The rescue came after the three men failed to return from a fishing expedition on Thursday.
The men had set out in a fishing boat from Leeman, 170 miles north of the Australian city of Perth.
Their failure to return sparked a search that covered 125 square miles of ocean.
One of the men died after he was taken ashore, while the other man was being treated for unspecified injuries, West Australian police said. The third man remains missing.
"We haven't spoken to the survivor yet and until then we don't know what happened," a police spokesman said.
A helicopter for Channel Seven television spotted one of the men first, with the reporter on board, Grant Taylor, dramatically relaying the action as it happened.
"When we first spotted him, one of the scariest things was there was a massive hammerhead shark not 20 metres (yards) away from him, just slowly circling around him," he told ABC radio.
"He's stark naked ... just struggling to swim and float on his back and try and keep his head out of the water," he added of the man.
"He keeps waving at our chopper trying to get us to come down and help him but there's nothing we can actually do."
Mr Taylor said an inflatable rescue raft was dropped, but it drifted away from the man.
"He just keeps putting his hands together praying, but he doesn't realise there's a boat just right behind him as we speak right now. Come on mate, just turn around and have a look, you're saved. He's yelling 'help'."
Mr Taylor said the man was finally picked up by a search and rescue vessel and survived the ordeal. A second man was later found but died after being rescued.
