DATE: March 1, 2009 11:58:04 AM EST
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

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News Release

Date:
March 1, 2009
 

Contact:
Petty Officer Sondra Kneen

(305) 965-4672

**Update** Coast Guard searching for 4 missing boaters

CLEARWATER, Fla. - The Coast Guard continues searching for four missing boaters about 50 miles west of Clearwater Pass Sunday.

Watchstanders at Coast Guard Sector St. Petersburg, Fla., received a call at about 1: 30 a.m., Sunday, reporting that three friends, Victor "Marquis" Cooper, Nick Skyler, Corey Smith and a possible fourth person did not return from their fishing trip as expected. Four boaters left at about 6:30 a.m. Saturday, from the Seminole Boat Ramp in Clearwater Pass, in a 21-foot center console boat. The reporting source later updated the information and confirmed there was a fourth person aboard the vessel.  

A Coast Guard 47-foot motor-life boat crew from Station Sand Key, Fla., HH-60 Jayhawk helicopter and C-130 Hercules fixed-wing aircrews from Coast Guard Air Station Clearwater, and the Coast Guard Cutter Crocodile are searching a 750-square mile area west of Clearwater Pass for the missing boaters. An Urgent Mariner Information Broadcast (UMIB) is also being transmitted on marine VHF radio channel 16.

If anyone has any information regarding this case they are asked to call Coast Guard Sector St. Petersburg at or by marine VHF radio channel 16.

 

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