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Coast Guard plane’s crew spends long days searching for boys

Petty Officer 3rd Class Charles Camarda, left, and Petty Officer 3rd Class Nate Matthews scour the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Savannah, Ga., Tuesday, July 28, 2015, looking for two missing teenage boaters. Camarda and Matthews are crew members from Air Station Clearwater, Florida. (AP Photo/Tamara Lush)
Petty Officer 3rd Class Charles Camarda, left, and Petty Officer 3rd Class Nate Matthews scour the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Savannah, Ga., Tuesday, July 28, 2015, looking for two missing teenage boaters. Camarda and Matthews are crew members from Air Station Clearwater, Florida. (AP Photo/Tamara Lush) Petty Officer 3rd Class Charles Camarda, left, and Petty Officer 3rd Class Nate Matthews scour the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Savannah, Ga., Tuesday, July 28, 2015, looking for two missing teenage boaters. Camarda and Matthews are crew members from Air Station Clearwater, Florida. (AP Photo/Tamara Lush)

By Associated Press 1 min read

ABOVE THE ATLANTIC OCEAN (AP) – Scouring the vast expanse of water off Florida for two missing teen boaters is a long, tedious mission for the eight-person crew of the Coast Guard C-130 Hercules based out of Clearwater.

The plane drops to 500 feet above the murky ocean and the crew eases open the back cargo ramp. Two petty officers flop on their bellies to scan the seas below.

Spotting something in the ocean involves a little luck and a lot of training and experience.

The Coast Guard says crews will continue focusing on waters off northern Florida and southern Georgia into Wednesday. But the relentless hunt by sea and air turned up no clue where the 14-year-olds Perry Cohen and Austin Stephanos might have drifted from their capsized boat.