ALAMEDA, Calif. — The U.S. Coast Guard suspended its search for the reported people in the water approximately 400 nautical miles southwest of the Mexico/Guatemala border Friday.
Despite extensive coordination with international rescue coordination centers, Department of War partners, and Automated Mutual-Assistance Vessel Rescue (AMVER) system vessels, available assets were extremely limited due to distance and range constraints.
The U.S. Coast Guard coordinated more than 65 hours of search efforts, leveraging an underway AMVER vessel in the region and U.S. Coast Guard HC-130J launched from Sacramento, covering more than 1,090 nautical miles under favorable visual conditions with no sightings of survivors or debris. Three additional vessels in the area were asked to assist in the search, all reporting negative results.
“Suspending a search is never easy and given the exhaustive search effort, lack of positive indications and declining probability of survival, we have suspended active search efforts pending further developments,” said U.S. Coast Guard Capt. Patrick Dill, chief of incident management, Southwest District. “At this stage of the response, the likelihood of a successful outcome, based on elapsed time, environmental conditions, and available resources for a person in the water is very low.”
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