DATE: March 01, 2009 14:12:30 EST
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Coast Guard continues search for 4 missing boaters

CLEARWATER, Fla. – The Coast Guard continues its search 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 four friends, Victor “Marquis” Cooper, Nick Schuyler, Corey Smith and William Bleakley did not return from their fishing trip as expected. The 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.

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.

ASSOCIATED PRESS, Dan Grossi, left, who works for the NFL’s security division, listens as Coast Guard Capt. Timothy M. Close speaks to the media about the search for a missing boat, in St. Petersburg, Fla., on Sunday, March 1, 2009. The Coast Guard was searching off Florida’s Gulf Coast on Sunday for a fishing boat carrying NFL players Corey Smith and Marquis Cooper and two other men, Will Bleakley and Nick Schuyler, missing nearly a day in choppy seas.   [LINK]

*Saving Lives and Guarding the Coast Since 1790.

The United States Coast Guard – Proud History. Powerful Future.

Posted by:  BBParks

Source:  Associated Press

Related Articles:

• Two NFL Player Missing Off Clearwater Coast [LINK]

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