How a Coast Guard plane scoured islands looking for migrants — and what the crew found
, 2023-01-21 15:00:00,
U.S. Coast Guard pilots Lt. Spencer Zwenger and Lt. Cmdr. Joshua Mitcheltree prepare their C-144 Ocean Sentry plane for a patrol over the Florida Straits on Jan. 14, 2023. (David Goodhue, Miami Herald/TNS)
CAY SAL BANK, Bahamas (Tribune News Service) — High above a remote uninhabited Bahamian island, a U..S. Coast Guard air crew on patrol watches as a man and small child fish from a white-sand beach. A twin-outboard engine cabin cruiser is anchored in a cove just a few feet from shore.
Using cameras mounted on the C-144 Ocean Sentry, pilots and radar operators watch from about 1,500 feet as the two stand on the sand, rod and reel in hand, waiting for a fish to bite. Then the man and child notice the plane circling above. They drop their fishing gear and run toward trees.
“It’s very peculiar,” Lt. Spencer Zwenger says as he pilots the plane and watches what’s happening on the beach below.
The pilot positions the plane — a twin-engine turbo prop that the Coast Guard uses for search and rescue and law enforcement patrols — at a different angle, and the cameras catch more people hiding beneath a tropical tree canopy.
“Oh, there’s more than two people,” Lt….
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