The U.S. Coast Guard is still searching for two teenage boaters from Jupiter who went missing off the Florida coast last week.
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The plane drops to 500 feet above the murky ocean and the crew eases open the back cargo ramp.
Spotting something in the ocean involves a little luck and a lot of training and experience.
“We’re continuing the search and we maintain the highest level of optimism going into this”, said Coast Guard Petty Officer 1st Class Stephen Lehmann in a briefing on Monday.
“We have a huge amount of confidence and I think that’s a testament to why the Coast Guard is working so hard”, Korniloff said.
He says the agency will likely reevaluate the search mission, which is entering its sixth day, sometime Wednesday.
The Coast Guard says finding the boat helped crews on five different Coast Guard cutters and aircrafts adjust the search zone. The search along Florida’s east coast has extended into Georgia and South Carolina. While there were several false alarms triggered by debris spotted in the ocean, there was nothing found that could be linked to the boys after the discovery of their capsized boat. Instead, they believe they were fishing offshore when the weather turned bad and “something went amiss”.
“Better safe than sorry”, replied another.
The Coast Guard said crews would continue focusing on waters off northern Florida and southern Georgia overnight Tuesday into Wednesday.
After almost 10 hours of flying, without success, the crew looked bleary and exhausted as it diverted the plane around a lightning storm on its way home.
Boaters from South Florida through South Carolina have been urged to stay alert and look for anything that could be related to the boys’ boat.
The two Florida teens who went missing at sea were not supposed to be out on the ocean, but are savvy enough to survive the ordeal, their families said Tuesday.
The Coast Guard and Tequesta Police met with family members of the missing teen boaters Tuesday afternoon. “We know it can happen and we’re hoping it happens again”.
Chief Petty Officer Ryan Doss, spokesman for the Florida Coast Guard district, told the Associated Press: “There is no plan to suspend the search today”. The information, they said, came from one of their sources. The boys were last seen buying fuel for a fishing trip on Friday and their overturned boat was found Sunday more than 180 miles (300 kilometers) north of where they started their journey.
Dr. Claude Piantadosi, a Duke University medical professor who authored “The Biology of Human Survival: Life and Death in Extreme Environments”, agreed, saying the obstacles were steep but the teens could still be alive. He wondered if they could be clinging to a cooler believed to have been aboard the boat and maybe used it to catch rainwater.
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It was unclear how many life jackets had been on board, nor was it known what other supplies they had. Could they fight their own thirst and thoughts of drinking the salt water? “We’re constantly reevaluating the situation to determine our next course of action, however as each hour goes by, the situation becomes dire.”
