FORT MYERS, FL.\u00a0\u2014 The search is continuing for two missing men off the coast of Southwest Florida and has grown into one of the largest in the region’s history.<\/p>\n
On Friday,\u00a0Randall Spivey and Brandon Billmaier went on a fishing trip\u00a0about 70 miles offshore of SWFL’s coast.<\/p>\n
At around 7:30 p.m. on Friday, both men failed to communicate back to their wives, prompting them to contact the US Coast Guard. At 11 p.m., authorities deployed a helicopter to aid in the search.<\/p>\n
Authorities updated their search at 1:30 a.m. on Saturday, where they located the boater’s vessel; however, both men were missing.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Coast Guard is leading the search, and now volunteers have also been helping. As of Monday morning, search efforts broadened.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The U.S. Coast Guard released a statement Sunday morning:<\/p>\n
“Today, we continue to search with air & surface crews, pursuing all leads and saturating the search area. Thank you to this amazing community for their support. Our thoughts are with the families as we continue our efforts.” \u2014 Capt. Corrie Sergent, Sector St. Pete CO.<\/p>\n
The U.S. Coast Guard began coordinating the search at 7 a.m. Monday and will continue throughout the day.<\/p>\n
Cajun Navy out of Louisiana is sending aircraft on Monday, 100 miles west of Naples. The Navy just got the green light from the family to do the search.\u00a0 They will be in the air around 11 a.m.\u00a0<\/p>\n
We’ve also caught up with a volunteer, who is going 110 miles off the coast from Fort Myers, to help with the search.\u00a0<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Brandon (left) and Randy (right).<\/p>\n
Credit: Deborah Billmaier<\/p>\n
Pilots from all over the Southeast United States have joined, along with private and government boats and aircraft.\u00a0<\/p>\n
If you are able to assist and wish to volunteer, please TEXT the following information to Paul Rocuant, a close friend of Randall, at 239-634-3400 as soon as possible:<\/p>\n
\u2022 Departure location\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2022 Vessel Name<\/p>\n
\u2022 Captain\u2019s Name and Cell Number<\/p>\n
\u2022 First Mate\u2019s Name and Cell Number<\/p>\n
\u2022 Vessel Range<\/p>\n
WINK News reporter Haley Jacobs will be joining the search efforts Monday afternoon.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FORT MYERS, FL.\u00a0\u2014 The search is continuing for two missing men off the coast of Southwest Florida and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":92802,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[209,211,210,1521,7649],"class_list":{"0":"post-92801","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cape-coral","8":"tag-cape-coral","9":"tag-cape-coral-headlines","10":"tag-cape-coral-news","11":"tag-southwest-florida","12":"tag-united-states-coast-guard"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92801","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92801"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92801\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/92802"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}