Missing boaters mayday call may have been a hoax

by Doug Miller/KHOU 11 News

khou.com

Posted on May 22, 2012 at 5:19 PM

GALVESTON, TEXAS—After the Coast Guard spent two days searching for the six supposed survivors of a sinking fishing boat, it's possible that the call was a hoax.

Coast Guard Sector Houston-Galveston received a distress call from the captain of the vessel around 1:15 p.m. Monday saying the boat was about 2.2 miles off the entrance of the Galveston Ship Channel and taking on water, so the six people onboard were abandoning ship into a life raft.

"We had very good search conditions, ideal search conditions. We reached out, obviously, to the public through the media yesterday.　 We've unturned nothing.　I mean, no report of missing vessel.　We were unable to, obviously out there searching all this time we were unable to find any debris, oil sheen, orange life raft at all," said Commander Rich Howes, US Coast Guard.

They called off the search at noon today.

Whoever radioed for help knew exactly what Coast Guard facility to ask for—it wasn't just some general mayday call.

The estimated cost of this operation, based on how much it costs to run each of those boats and aircrafts per hour, is around $ 200,000.

If this was a hoax, it was also a federal crime and however made that call could be prosecuted.

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