Coast Guard calls off search for missing father and teenage son who disappeared on crab fishing trip

US News

From Jorge Fitz-Gibbon

The U.S. Coast Guard has called off its search for a 50-year-old Texas man and his teenage son who disappeared Saturday during a crabbing expedition off the coast of the Lone Star State.

The man and his 15-year-old son – identified by the family on a fundraising page as Benedicto Jaramillo and Angel Alejandro Jaramillo, respectively – left Port Lavaca on the Gulf Coast aboard the boat My Possum around 5 a.m. Saturday and were expected to return around 10:30 a.m.

Concerned about stormy weather conditions on Saturday morning, relatives reported the two missing shortly before 11:30 a.m. A flotilla of coast guard and local authorities then launched a search operation that was finally called off at 7:55 a.m. on Sunday, the coast guard said in a press release.

“Whenever we send out our rescue teams, it is with the fervent hope that we can bring everyone home safely,” Homar Barrera of the National Guard’s Corpus Christi Sector said in a statement.

“After considering all relevant factors, we have unfortunately made the difficult decision to end our search today,” Barrera added.

The two missing people were shrimp fishermen, and the elder Jaramillo was the sole breadwinner for his family, according to the GoFundMe campaign, which asked for donations to cover costs “to search for and recover the vessel.”

The Coast Guard said it spent 21 hours searching 124 kilometers of ocean for the boat, issued an urgent alert, and deployed patrol helicopters and several boats, including a fireboat.

Calhoun County rescue crews, as well as teams from the Texas Parks & Wildlife Department and the Texas Department of Public Safety, participated in the search, the Coast Guard said.

According to authorities, the missing father was a deckhand on the “My Possum.”