The stepfather of one of the Florida teens who disappeared at sea in July 2015 and were never found noted that the boat they were using had no emergency radio on board, People magazine reported on May 6. He stressed that it’s bizarre that all boats aren’t required to come with one.
Boats less than 65.6 feet in length are not required to have a VHF radio, which are used in emergencies. The boat that Austin Stephanos and Perry Cohen, both 14---steered from the Jupiter Inlet into the Atlantic Ocean---also didn’t come equipped with one.
“We have our own experts, people that we can call in ourselves to look at that boat and give their forensic analysis of it. They’re willing to do that,” Korniloff said. “But we don’t know if we’re even going to be able to have access to it.”
“If this was to remain an unsolved mystery, it would remain an unsolved mystery,” Cohen added. “But to have the actual boat that the boys were on and an iPhone that they were both using for communication to suddenly reappear 100 miles off the coast of Bermuda in international waters, there’s a reason. There are answers begging to be discovered.”
Florida Fish and Wildlife officials said the phone was “significantly and severely” deteriorated. However, the Stephanos family agreed to send it to Apple for a forensic analysis.
The cellphone, however, had been in saltwater for eight months. “When it goes into the water,” Mike Cobb, director of engineering at DriveSaver, told WBPF-TV. “It’s going to be starting the corrosion process immediately.”
But, “There is precedent for devices that have been severely damaged to recover if not all its information, some information,” he added.
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