Passaic River.Boating distress call was a Hoax

[voyager35]

Folks who do this don't realize how dangerous it is to take up the Coast Guard's time like that.



http://www.nj.com/essex/index.ssf/20...ult#incart_hbx
Fairfield police now believe boating distress call was a hoax

Published: Thursday, October 11, 2012, 7:56 PM Updated: Friday, October 12, 2012, 6:25 AM



FAIRFIELD — A "Mayday" call that sparked a two-day search for three missing boaters in the Passaic River in Fairfield was likely a hoax, police and the U.S. Coast Guard said today.
Fairfield Deputy Police Chief Anthony Manna said his department has launched a criminal investigation and notified the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office.
Authorities have been unable to determine who placed the distress call, which came in on a standard marine radio frequency and was picked up by the Coast Guard station in Staten Island station at 9:45 p.m., Wednesday.
"We have classified this case as a probable hoax," Coast Guard spokesman Charles Rowe said.
"It’s a relatively restricted area, so had there been something there, chances are we would have found it."
After receiving the distress call, the Coast Guard did not send a boat up river, but rather contacted Fairfield and the New Jersey State Police, whose officers found nothing during a search of what Manna said was an "extremely shallow" stretch of river from the Fairfield-Pine Brook border to Elmwood Park.
The search lasted three hours Wednesday night and about five hours this morning. No boats or trialers were found, Manna said, and police received no eyewitness or missing-persons reports.
The search was the latest in a growing problem of government agencies mobilizing staff and resources for extensive and expensive responses to prank emergency calls. Since 2008, the Coast Guard has received more than 200 "uncorrelated Mayday" and probable hoax calls in the area that includes New Jersey, New York and the Hudson River.
"Any hoax is alarming because it’s a diversion of resources," Rowe said. "This time it happened to be a diversion of two New Jersey police agencies. But they still wouldn’t have been in a position where they could help someone in need. You’re putting someone’s life in peril when you pull this kind of stuff."
On June 11, the Coast Guard received "Mayday" call at 4:20 p.m. from a man claiming to be on a yacht called the "Blind Date." The man said there had been an explosion on board the vessel, which he said was in the Atlantic Ocean 18 miles off of Sandy Hook. Twenty-one people were reported to have abandoned ship, according to the caller.

[plugginpete]

They should make the fines for doing that more than they are