Four fishermen have gone missing off the Texas Gulf Coast after their boat sank early Friday morning. The U.S. Coast Guard is currently utilizing boats, helicopters, as well as two separate airplanes in their search for the missing men.
According to Petty Officer Richard Brahm, the Coast Guard first received a distress signal from the 50-foot boat on Friday at approximately 3:30 AM. The boat was apparently sinking about 115 miles southeast of Galveston, near the Texas-Louisiana border.
It is currently unknown what exactly caused the boat to sink, although Brahm noted that weather conditions were bad at that time. There were sustained wins in excess of 33 mph, with gusts up to 40 mph. The 50-degree water was also seeing swells of between 10 and 15 feet, which would have been massive for the relatively small boat.
At around 8:30 AM that morning, a search team located crew member John Robinson on a life raft, who stated that he was unsure what happened to the other four men onboard the vessel. Robinson was returned to Galveston later that day.
The search area has so far been expanded to an area just slightly smaller than the state of Delaware. In total, the Coast Guard has utilized one cutter boat, a helicopter, and two airplanes since the search began.
"We're going to keep searching until someone tells us to stop," Brahm stated, reporting that the Coast Guard was using a wide variety of factors to determine how likely it is that the four men could still be alive out there. The Coast Guard has so far unsuccessfully searched a 2,000 square mile area; they have not noted how optimistic they are of finding the four men.
Brahm stated that the Coast Guard plans to continue to search at least through Saturday night.
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