By PA1 Mark Mackowiak

             To search and rescue professionals, it’s a scenario that is haunting and easily avoidable: boaters not properly informing friends or relatives of their trip, their boat breaks down and/or severe weather passes through their area and the boaters are reported missing to the Coast Guard.  Before rescue units are dispatched, officials need some basic information; a description of the people and the vessel and a location. Therein lies a problem- a float plan wasn’t properly filed.

             A float plan is simply basic information such as: names, addresses and ages of the vessel’s owner and/or operator and passengers aboard; a detailed description of the boat; what survival equipment is onboard; detailed trip expectations (locations and times), and any other additional information rescuers may need. An example of additional information would be any prescription drugs the owner or a passenger may be taking or if a passenger has a medical condition.

             Once the information is on paper, it should be filed with friends and/or relatives who are not joining the boating party.  Phone numbers for the proper authorities (local sheriffs office, state marine patrol and local Coast Guard) should also be included, along with a time the party is expected back in port.

“A float plan can be a critical tool for us when we receive a report of an overdue boater or fisherman,” said Lt. Cmdr. Michael Gatlin, former senior search and rescue controller for the Eighth Coast Guard District.  “It can alleviate much of the investigative work we do before we send units to their aid.”

How important is it to take five minutes and draft a float plan?  It can mean the difference between life and death.

In March 2002, Mobile, Ala., and New Orleans area Coast Guard units searched the Gulf of Mexico, south of Alabama, for a family of five who were reported missing in a 32-foot shrimp boat.  After four days of searching more than 13,500 miles of ocean, an area larger than the state of Maryland, the searchers’ fears became reality when one victim was located deceased among a debris field.

 Although the victim was wearing a life jacket, which is critical in survival at sea, it was the lack of information on the family’s location that frustrated search and rescue controllers in the Eighth District.

“When the initial report came in reporting the Krumm family overdue, we were told they went shark fishing 40-miles south of Alabama in the Gulf.  That’s an immense area- the location was much too vague,” Gatlin said.

The search and rescue controllers combined what little information they had on the Krumm family’s location, the day’s weather forecast and sea state into a computer program known as Computer Aided Search Planning (CASP) to “map out” a search plan.  Unfortunately, the area was more than 1,600 square miles, larger than the state of Rhode Island.  An area that far exceeded the endurance for any Eighth District unit.

“Our grid for the initial search was so large, we requested a C-130 long distance plane from Air Station Clearwater, Fla., because we don’t have an aircraft here with 12 hours worth of endurance,” he said.

Once the controllers had a search area, which was west of the shipping lanes south of Mobile, they dispatched six different rescue units.

The margin of error for the Krumm family not to be somewhere in that search grid, and not to be located by a Coast Guard unit, was huge, Gatlin commented.

But the search grid CASP recommended was correct.  And less than six hours into the search for the family of five, a boatcrew from Station Pascagoula, Miss., located a debris field, which contained items from the Krumm’s boat, approximately five miles southeast of Horn Island; one of the barrier islands of Mississippi.

Soon after locating the debris field of life jackets, a life ring, some clothing, a mattress, a cooler, seat cushions and pieces of a fiberglass boat, the wind was sucked from the rescue portion of search and rescue, as searchers located the body of a young woman.  Although 19-year-old Sabrina Krumm was wearing a life jacket, the Jackson County Coroner stated Sabrina’s cause of death was drowning.

Two days later, searchers hadn’t located any of the four other missing boaters, and officials had to make the tough decision to conclude the active search for them.  Five days later, Coast Guard personnel and Bon Secour, Ala., Fire and Rescue officials recovered two more bodies from the tragic voyage.

 No one could have looked into a crystal ball and seen the outcome to the Krumm’s voyage, nor does anyone know if a proper float plan would have assured their rescue.  If a float plan was completed, the valuable time lost to investigating the Krumm’s potential location would have been eliminated, allowing units more time to search — and possibly save a life.

In another recent search and rescue case, another family of five, the Perrins, was reported missing between Grand Isle and Venice, La.   When the Perrins’ overdue report came in to officials at Group New Orleans, it was eerily similar to the family from Mobile.

Search and rescue controllers at Group New Orleans dispatched five rescue units to an area southwest of New Orleans.  Unlike the Krumm case, search planners had a more precise location.  The Perrins did file a float plan, so the Coast Guard inundated the area with boats, helicopters and a cutter.  The family’s friends also contributed to the search.

Several hours into the search, Coast Guard units hadn’t found anything related to the Perrin’s boat.  Coasties who were involved in the Krumm case didn’t take long to assume the worst. 

“We were starting to get frustrated because we had so many units in the area they were reportedly in; if they were on the surface or if something was on the surface, we should’ve found it,” said Petty Officer 2^nd Class Brian Wear, a former search and rescue controller with Group New Orleans. 

Then Wear and his shipmates received word the Perrins were located.  A family friend found them safe and all together. 

But they weren’t where their float plan stated.

One of the 41-foot rescue boatscrews who searched for the Perrin’s met them shortly after they were located to discuss what happened.  Kevin Perrin, the father, owner and operator of the boat, decided to change course because of severe weather forecasted for the area of Grand Isle and Venice, the boatcrew said.  Additionally, Perrin failed to notify friends or family of the change, and the family took refuge in a bay southeast of Pilottown, La.

During the boat crew’s debrief of Perrin, they learned he didn’t have his marine radio on at all times while underway.  If Perrin had his radio on, he would have heard the Urgent Marine Information Broadcast (UMIB) about the search for this family being disseminated throughout the airwaves.

 In the end, the Perrins weren’t in any danger.  They had plenty of provisions for several days at sea, and were allowed to continue fishing.  But their friends back home in LaFitte, La., were notified of the change of location for fishing and expected time to return.  The Perrin’s close friends had their updated float plan.