US Coast Guard(KENNEBUNKPORT, Maine) — The U.S. Coast Guard has suspended a search for a man and his three children who went missing off the coast of Maine.
Watchstanders for the Coast Guard’s New England command centers received a radio distress call Saturday around 10:30 a.m. from the man, who reported that the boat he and his kids were on had capsized off the coast of Kennebunkport, Maine, according to a press release.
In a mayday call released by the Coast Guard, the man states that he and his children were huddling together in the water and that they were going to try to get back onto the jon boat, which had “flipped over.”
“If not, we’re all gonna just huddle in the water,” the man said.
The Coast Guard lost radio communication with the man but continued to search for 22 hours over a span of 1,523 nautical miles.
“We take all calls for help seriously,” said Cmdr. James McLay, the search and rescue mission coordinator for the Coast Guard’s New England sector. “We utilized every resource at our disposal and applied an extraordinary amount of search effort to locate these boaters. If there was anyone in distress we gave them the best possible chance for rescue.”
The search has been halted “pending new information,” according to the Coast Guard.
Additional information was not immediately available.
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