The Coast Guard announced Friday that it has suspended its search for a boat that did not arrive in Florida days ago. The Coast Guard said there were about 20 people on board.
The Coast Guard reported Tuesday that a 29-foot Mako Cuddy Cabin vessel, which left Bimini, Bahamas, on Monday, did not arrive in Lake Worth, Florida as expected. The agency said it searched about 17,000 square miles for 84 hours without it being necessary.
“Our thoughts and prayers go out to the families of the missing people,” said Captain Stephen V. Burdian, the seventh district chief of response. “I encourage anyone with information about the people on board to contact us as soon as possible.”
The CBS subsidiary WPEC reported that the Coast Guard encountered several problems during the search, including rough waters and not the identity of anyone on board or where exactly the boat would arrive.
“The hardest part is that the longer it takes us to find someone, the longer they can drift,” Jose Hernandez, first class of the U.S. Coast Guard, the first class, told WPEC on Wednesday.
Hernandez said a few days before the search was called off, the Coast Guard stopped a search only “once we have exhausted all the assets and information we have.”
“We want to find it, and that’s our top priority, but we can only be out there for that long,” he said at the time.