Search suspended for missing teens off Florida coast
TAMPA, Fla. (Reuters) - The U.S. Coast Guard called off its search for two 14-year-old boys from South Florida at sunset on Friday, a week after they disappeared while on a fishing trip off the state's Atlantic Ocean coast.
The search for Austin Stephanos and Perry Cohen has spanned nearly 50,000 square nautical miles, an area roughly the size of the state of Florida, up to Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, the Coast Guard said. This is nearly 1,000 miles by land north of Jupiter, Florida, where the teens launched their boat.
“As we come to the difficult decision to suspend this search, our deepest condolences go to the families and all affected,” Coast Guard Captain Mark Fedor said in a statement.
"Hundreds of people searched thousands of miles with hope of bringing these boys home to their loved ones.”
The boys, who were fishing buddies and neighbors in their Palm Beach County hometown, were last seen buying fuel for their 19-foot, single-engine vessel on July 24.
Two days later, the U.S. Coast Guard found their overturned boat about 180 miles north of Jupiter, along with one life vest.
The boys' family members said in a statement that they would continue private search and rescue efforts, according to local media reports.
In interviews with media, the boys' mothers described them as skilled seamen with strong knowledge of the boat and ocean.
Relatives have been holding out hope that several items missing from the boat, including life vests and a cooler, could be keeping them alive, the Sun Sentinel newspaper in Fort Lauderdale reported.
The U.S. Coast Guard said it had taken into consideration the age of the boys, their familiarity with the water and their will to live.
The agency said it also had contacted authorities in the Bahamas and searched in the area following reports on social media that the boys were headed to islands in the Caribbean.
(Additional reporting by Suzannah Gonzales in Chicago and Victoria Cavaliere in Los Angeles; Editing by Bill Trott and Sandra Maler)
