4 people missing after boat never returned found safe
Four people, including two children ages 11 and 12, were found safe Tuesday afternoon after the boat they were on never returned to the Pass Christian Harbor from which they left on Monday.
Petty Officer William King told the Sun Herald that the two adults and two children were found safe Tuesday afternoon in the Gulfport Shipping Chanel near Ship Island, miles from where they were last seen.
According to a press release, the crew of the Coast Guard Cutter Tiger Shark spotted the disabled 19-foot Mako skiff at 12:10 p.m. with the four missing boaters aboard wearing life jackets.
A Mississippi Department of Marine Resources boat crew received the boaters and took them to the Port of Gulfport in Gulfport while a Coast Guard Station Gulfport 24-foot Special Purpose Craft-Shallow Water towed the boat back to shore.
“Thanks to the coordination between our units and partner agencies, we were able to locate the four missing boaters and bring them back home to their friends and family,” Ensign Moriya French, a command duty officer at Coast Guard Sector Mobile, said in a release. “This incident serves as a reminder to the boating public to always have proper VHF-FM radio communication equipment, an EPIRB, SPOT GPS, and other geolocating devices onboard your vessel before going out to sea.”
The Coast Guard led a massive search of the Biloxi Bay and other waterways after the boaters did not return to shore at their scheduled time of 8 p.m. and their car and trailer were left at Pass Christian Harbor, according to a press release. The Coast Guard initially stated that the car and trailer remained at Lake Mars Pier.
The boaters are:
- Victoria Elizabeth Farr, 42
- Richard Allen, 37
- Piper Nicole Farr, 12
- Chase Jaxon Craig, 11
Coast Guard watchstanders in Mobile began the search after receiving a a call around 4:30 a.m. from a concerned family friend saying the boaters never returned home.
The area was covered in fog Monday evening and through Tuesday morning, the National Weather Service said.
Marcia Hill, public information officer for the Jackson County Sheriff’s Department, said a deputy went out to the Lake Mars Pier —where the Coast Guard initially thought the boaters were missing from — to see if he could see the boat at 6:39 a.m. It was so foggy that he couldn’t see anything.
Multiple rescue crews assisted in the search, including:
- Coast Guard Aviation Training Center Mobile
- Coast Guard Station Gulfport
- Coast Guard Station Pascagoula
- Coast Guard Cutter Tiger Shark
- Mississippi Department of Marine Resources
- National Park Service
- Jackson County Sheriff’s Department
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story misstated where the boaters left from. It has been corrected in this version.
This story was originally published January 31, 2023 at 12:46 PM.
