Sailboat distress call may have been hoax MONTEREY

Video: 2 Adults, 2 Kids Missing Off Calif. Coast

The U.S. Coast Guard suspended its search off Monterey on Tuesday for four people reported missing aboard a sinking sailboat, saying a distress call from the vessel may have been a hoax.

Officials stopped short of declaring that there was never any sinking sailboat 65 miles off the coast. But they said they were ending the search because there were no signs of the vessel or its occupants after nearly two days of looking in an area roughly the size of West Virginia.

"We're not investigating it directly as a hoax, but I will say that we are pursuing every avenue, and it certainly is a possibility," said Coast Guard Cmdr. Don Montoro.

He estimated the search had cost at least "hundreds of thousands of dollars." The Coast Guard sent C-130 Hercules planes, helicopters and boats to scour a 20,000-square-mile area, and the Navy and California Air National Guard also sent up aircraft.

Earlier Tuesday, Coast Guard Petty Officer Barry Bena said much of the information officials received hadn't been confirmed, from the name of the boat to the identities of the four said to be on board. Officials also don't know where the boat came from or where it was going.

"It is making the search difficult," Bena said. "When you don't have anything to go by, it makes it frustrating. There's no name, there's no confirmed name of the vessel, no one has come forward to say, 'Hey, my family's missing' or anything."

It all began about 4:20 p.m. Sunday when a man reported on a marine radio that he, his wife, their 4-year-old son and the boy's cousin, believed to be younger than 8, were on a 29-foot boat possibly named Charmblow and were in trouble. The boat's electronics were failing and the vessel was taking on water, he reported.

About 70 minutes after the first distress call, the man radioed, "Coast Guard, Coast Guard, we are abandoning ship. This is Charmblow. We are abandoning ship."

Two adults and two children were missing at sea after abandoning ship off the Central California coast. Two adults and two children were missing at sea after abandoning ship off the Central California coast. Photo: CBS San Francisco Photo: CBS San Francisco Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Sailboat distress call may have been hoax 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

The man said all four people aboard were trying to use a life ring and a cooler to hang onto, officials said. All radio communication was then lost, the Coast Guard said.

"It's very convincing, and we took it very seriously," Montoro said.

The Coast Guard said Monday that it had tracked the distress call to 65 miles off Monterey. Asked if it was possible to fake a call to make it appear it originated from somewhere else, Coast Guard Chief Petty Officer Mike Lutz said, "I'm not a huge technical expert, but nowadays I think that people are probably capable of doing that."

Although the man on the radio seemed calm, that doesn't necessarily mean the call was bogus, Lutz said.

"Some people are very calm and collected and can give information that they're going down, that they're losing their vessel," Lutz said. "So that by itself wouldn't be a reason to call off the search."

If authorities conclude that it was a hoax, any suspects could face criminal charges in federal court. That was the case with Kurtis Thorsted of Salinas, who was convicted in 2004 and again in 2010 of making a series of fake mayday transmissions, including one in which he claimed to be in a kayak off Santa Cruz.

One of Thorsted's fake calls interrupted a real rescue operation involving a stricken boat off Santa Cruz. The two fishermen aboard were rescued before it sank.

Montoro said fake calls use up resources and place rescuers in unnecessary danger.

"It's like going into a burning building as a firefighter - you don't do it unless you have to," Montoro said. "So it would be disappointing."