Search For 2 Men Missing Near Pass-A-Grille Turns To Recovery

ST. PETE BEACH, FL — While the U.S. Coast Guard officially suspended its search for two men who went missing in Pass-a-Grille channel waters on Tuesday, the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office is continuing its efforts. The search-and-rescue mission, however, has turned into a recovery operation, the agency acknowledged in a Friday morning email to media.

The sheriff’s office intends to keep its efforts going strong through the weekend until dusk on Sunday, March 19, the agency said.

“The sheriff’s office will continue to utilize resources from the flight unit, the marine unit, the dive team, and patrol deputies to search by land” and sea, the email said. After Sunday, extra patrols will continue looking by land and water with flight unit spot checks being conducted as units are available.

The search for Andrew Dillman, 27, of New York and Jie Luo, 21, of China began shortly after 6 p.m. Tuesday when watch standers at Coast Guard Sector St. Petersburg received a report from the captain of a 71-foot yacht that the men had been pulled away from the boat in rough waters. The coast guard’s search officially ended at 7:41 p.m. March 16 after more than 1,577 square miles had been covered during 39 separate searches, that agency reported.

According to the sheriff’s office, 15 students from Colorado State University were on board the yacht, named the Jaguar, at the time of the men's disappearance. The boat was chartered for a four-hour cruise, Sheriff Bob Gualtieri said during a Wednesday afternoon press conference.

Charter Capt. Todd Davis made the decision not to take the boat out into open Gulf of Mexico waters because of hazardous conditions. He anchored the vessel in the channel area instead, Gualtieri said. At that point, five male students decided to go swimming off the side of the boat while it was anchored. Davis told authorities he advised the men not to go because it was too rough.

The five, however, decided to jump off and swim back to the vessel several times. On the third jump, one of the men had trouble swimming back.

“Only four were able to swim back to the vessel,” the sheriff’s office wrote in a Wednesday morning email to media. As the charter boat’s captain tried to help four of the swimmers back onto the vessel, a charter mate, Dillman, jumped into the water to help Luo, the sheriff’s office said.

Davis told authorities he pulled anchor and tried to rescue the men. The current, however, pulled them away. An attempt to throw flotation devices out to the two, resulted in the wind pulling those devices in the other direction, Gualtieri said.

"The last anybody saw them, they were being pulled out into the Gulf," the sheriff said.

The incident remains under investigation. No further information is available at this time.

Photo courtesy of the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office Facebook page