CLEARWATER, Fla. – The Coast Guard continues its search for four missing boaters about 50 miles west of Clearwater Pass Sunday. Among the four are two NFL players
Watchstanders at Coast Guard Sector St. Petersburg, Fla., received a call at about 1: 30 a.m., Sunday, reporting that four friends, Oakland Raiders linebacker Victor “Marquis” Cooper, Nick Skyler, Corey Smith, a free agent who played for the Detroit Lions last season and William Bleakley did not return from their fishing trip as expected. The four boaters left at about 6:30 a.m., Saturday, from the Seminole Boat Ramp in Clearwater Pass, in a 21-foot center console boat.
A Coast Guard 47-foot motor-life boat crew from Station Sand Key, Fla., HH-60 Jayhawk helicopter and C-130 Hercules fixed-wing aircrews from Coast Guard Air Station Clearwater, and the Coast Guard Cutter Crocodile are searching a 750-square mile area west of Clearwater Pass for the missing boaters. An Urgent Mariner Information Broadcast (UMIB) is also being transmitted on marine VHF radio channel 16.
If anyone has any information regarding this case they are asked to call Coast Guard Sector St. Petersburg at or by marine VHF radio channel 16.