WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — After several nights of searching for two Florida boys missing at sea, the U.S. Coast Guard called off the search at sunset on Friday.
The Coast Guard spent a week scouring waters from Florida up through South Carolina but there was no trace or new clues in the boys' disappearance.
The teens, Perry Cohen and Austin Stephanos, both 14, have been missing since Friday when they left Jupiter in a 19-foot fishing boat.
Their boat was found capsized 67 miles off the Volusia County coast on Sunday, but Cohen and Stephanos were nowhere to be found.
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Searchers covered more than 40,000 square nautical miles from Jupiter to Charleston, South Carolina.
Chief Petty Officer Ryan Doss said Thursday night that crews would be mobilized through Friday morning.
"By suspension we mean if new information comes to light, we have the ability to reopen the case," Capt. Mark Fedor of the Coast Guard 7th District in Miami said. "I have a 14-year-old and 13-year-old. The decision to suspend was excrutiating and gut wrenching for me personally."
The Coast Guard makes its decision erring on the side of best-case scenarios, while still noting there are limits to how long humans can survive in the open ocean.
The boys’ mothers — Pamela Cohen, Perry’s mother, and Carly Black, Austin’s mother — have been adamant that their boys, with years of experience on the water, would be able to survive the boat’s capsizing.
The family has raised more than $300,000 for a private search effort. They plan to use the money to fly private aircrafts and buy boat fuel.
There are many unknowns about the boys, including whether they have life jackets on, might have a cooler or some other object to cling to or have drinking water or food.
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