Cell phone on empty boat leads rescue crews to 2 stranded on Horn Island, Coast Guard says

Two boaters stranded overnight on Horn Island were rescued by the Coast Guard on Monday after authorities found a capsized boat, an ice chest and cell phone, then tracked the passengers to a Mississippi beach.

Coast Guard helicopter video shows the two boaters standing on the shores of Horn Island, waiting for rescue. The Coast Guard said it flew the boaters by helicopter to the Gulfport-Biloxi International Airport. No injuries were reported.

The call came Monday morning to the Coast Guard Sector Mobile: An aircrew spotted a 14-foot aluminum boat with camouflage design adrift near Horn Island. The Coast Guard said no one was on board.

A Coast Guard crew from Pascagoula rushed to the boat and found a cooler with ice, a wallet and a cell phone, according to a press release.

The Coast Guard said its crew and 911 dispatchers used the phone and an I.D. found in the wallet to call boat owner’s family. The owner and a friend had been separated from their boat and stranded on Horn Island overnight, the Coast Guard said.

A Coast Guard helicopter was already in the air. It searched Horn Island for the missing boaters and found them at the beach.

The rescue was the latest in Mississippi waters this year. In June, the Coast Guard also rescued five South Mississippi men who spent four-and-a-half hours floating in the Gulf of Mexico after their boat sank.

This story was originally published July 30, 2024 at 10:51 AM.