NEW YORK—An explosion on the yacht Blind Date on Monday afternoon that supposedly killed three passengers, and injured several more, was a hoax, U.S. Coast Guard officials said on Tuesday.
Two fake distress calls, the first one made at 4:20 p.m, asserted 21 passengers had begun abandoning ship and boarding life boats in the water east of Sandy Hook, N.J. The Coast Guard is offering a $3,000 reward for information leading to the perpetrators.
“We have 21 souls on board, 20 in the water right now. I have 3 deceased on board, 9 injured because of the explosion we’ve had. I’m in 3 feet of water on the bridge. I’m going to stay by the water as long as I can before I have to go overboard,” claims one caller on a 1 minute 25 second audio recording released by the Coast Guard. The man went on to purport he was using a solar-powered radio since the electronic array was gone.
Following the hoax calls Coast Guard officials and units from the NYPD, FDNY, New Jersey State Police, and Nassau County Police Department scoured approximately 638 square nautical miles.
“More than 200 first responders assembled mass casualty receptions areas in Newark, and Coast Guard Station Sandy Hook, N.J., preparing to receive the reported injured passengers,” said Cmdr. Kenneth Pierro, of Coast Guard Sector New York, in a release.
False distress calls “waste tax payer dollars, put Coast Guard and other first responders at unnecessary risk and can interfere with the Coast Guard’s ability to respond to actual distress at sea,” the release said, adding it’s also a federal felony, with a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison, a $250,000 fine, and reimbursement to the Coast Guard for search costs.
Sixty-plus suspected fake calls in the northern New Jersey, New York City, and Hudson River region were received in 2011.
The Coast Guard urged anyone with information about Monday’s incident to anonymously contact its investigative service at 646-872-5774 or 212-668-7048.
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