After months at sea, the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Waesche returned to San Diego on Thursday, with over 37,000 pounds of confiscated cocaine and one less crew member, lost at sea, officials said. The offloading of their massive narcotics haul -- which weighs about as much as a full grown humpback whale and is estimated to be worth 275 million -- comes days after search efforts were ended for 23-year-old Seaman Bryan Lee, according to the Coast Guard. Lee, who hails from Rancho Cordova, was discovered missing at 6:45 a.m. last Tuesday while the Waesche was conducting a routine counter-drug patrol around 300 nautical miles south of Mexico. Search crews dedicated over 190 hours to scouring 19,000 nautical miles for Lee using drones, aircraft and vessels, before suspending the search on Monday. The confiscated cocaine was netted through 11 drug interdiction missions off the coasts of Mexico and Central and South America from December through mid February.

Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., opens up about the aerial systems spotted in the Garden State on'The Story.' A U.S. Coast Guard official said one of its vessels was trailed by dozens of drones off the coast of New Jersey recently, according to Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J. Smith, a guest on "The Story with Martha MacCallum" Tuesday, said he spent Monday night on the beach in Ocean County and spoke to several people, including a U.S. Coast Guard commanding officer stationed in Barnegat Light. Smith learned from the Coast Guard commander that the night before, "one of their 47-foot vessels, boats, was trailed very closely by more than a dozen of these drones." "Now, that to me, is very, very, not just suspicious, provocative, and this could be a foreign power, whether it be [Vladimir] Putin, or it could be Xi Jinping in China, or the Middle East, we can't rule any of that out," the congressman said. Photos taken in the Bay Shore section of Toms River of what appear to be large drones hovering in the area at high altitudes in New Jersey on Sunday, Dec. 8, 2024.

Abstract-- Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are emerging as very important tools in search and rescue (SAR) missions at sea, enabling swift and efficient deployment for locating individuals or vessels in distress. The successful execution of these critical missions heavily relies on effective path planning algorithms that navigate UAVs through complex maritime environments while considering dynamic factors such as water currents and wind flow. Furthermore, they need to account for the uncertainty in search target locations. However, existing path planning methods often fail to address the inherent uncertainty associated with the precise location of search targets and the uncertainty of oceanic forces. In this paper, we develop a framework to develop and investigate trajectory planning algorithms for maritime SAR scenarios employing UAVs. We adopt it to compare multiple planning strategies, some of them used in practical applications by the United States Coast Guard. Furthermore, we propose a novel planner that aims at bridging the gap between computation heavy, precise algorithms and lightweight strategies applicable to real-world scenarios.

The discipline title of naval architecture and marine engineering (NAME) may only be a couple of hundred years old, but the origins date back thousands of years to ancient civilizations where humans were building boats to explore and carry out commerce. Various people, including Archimedes, Bouguer, and Chapman, have formalized the theories, science, and methods of the concepts of buoyancy, stability, and ship design. NAME is a professional engineering discipline that covers the design, build, testing, surveying, maintenance, and operations of marine vessels and structures. I graduated from the US Coast Guard Academy with a bachelor's degree in naval architecture and marine engineering, as well as earning my master's at UC Berkeley. For the past 22 years, I have been working as a naval architect for a private marine consulting firm, working on the designs of passenger ferries, oceanographic research vessels, barges, and other vessels.

A transnational inquiry has been launched to determine accountability for the deaths of five passengers aboard the OceanGate Expeditions submersible that imploded during a descent to the wreckage of the Titanic in the North Atlantic, the United States Coast Guard announced Sunday. Maritime agencies from Canada, France and Britain are joining an investigation that will be led by the Coast Guard, Capt. Jason Neubauer said during a news conference at Coast Guard Base Boston. Neubauer said the priority of the investigation, known as a Marine Board of Investigation, or MBI, "is to recover items from the seafloor." Neubauer said investigators will also determine "the cause of this marine casualty" and establish accountability.

Navy SEAL Jake Zweig responds to the intense search for the missing Titanic submarine on'Fox & Friends.' Efforts to recover the remains of the Titan submersible that suffered a catastrophic implosion near the Titanic wreckage are currently underway, and as of Sunday, had descended to the seafloor for a fourth dive. Last Thursday, the U.S. Coast Guard confirmed that a debris field located about 1,600 feet from the wreckage of the Titanic was in fact that of the missing Titan submersible. The underwater vessel was carrying five men on board when it lost contact with its surface ship about an hour and 45 minutes after descending to the Titanic. South Wellfleet, Massachusetts-based Pelagic Research Services (PRS) was contacted by OceanGate, the company behind Titan, for use of its remotely operated vehicles, or "ROVs," to assist with the search. Pelagic Research Services continues to assist the Transportation Safety Board of Canada, U.S. Coast Guard, and U.S. National Transportation Safety Board with Titan recovery efforts near the Titanic wreckage.

First Coast Guard District Rear Admiral John Mauger offers his condolences to the loved ones of the Titan submersible crew on'America Reports.' BOSTON – EXCLUSIVE: Stockton Rush, the 61-year-old adventurer and CEO who died this week along with four other crew members in a catastrophic implosion near the bow of the Titanic, appeared in a series of never-before-seen surreal images captured during testing of the vehicle years ago. In the series of May 2018 photos taken in Abaco, Bahamas, and obtained by Fox News Digital, Rush can be seen peering through the vessel's lone porthole, testing out computer equipment inside and posing next to the 21-foot submersible on the deck of a ship before the test run. They were captured by underwater photographer Becky Kagan Schott, who said Rush had tested the vehicle numerous times in the area, and she befriended the adventurer. The Titan was designed to reach depths of 4,000 meters, according to OceanGate, the company Rush founded in 2009. It was meant for a variety of purposes, including scientific research, media production, and site surveying.

"A debris field was discovered within the search area by an ROV near the Titanic," the USCG said just before noon. ROV stands for remotely operated vehicle. Experts were evaluating the information. The Titan lost contact with its surface vessel, the Polar Prince, around 1 hour and 45 minutes into its dive Sunday morning, about 900 miles east of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and around 400 miles southeast of St John's, in Canada's Newfoundland. "We understand debris has been found which may be the landing frame and a rear cover of the tail instrument compartment of The Titan lost on previous dives," Richard Garriott, the president of the Explorers Club which had members on the missing sub, wrote to the group, according to a spokesman. "We hear there may be additional debris, but no updated visuals of the submersible." This file image provided by OceanGate shows the Titan submersible descending into the ocean.

The crew aboard the OceanGate sub has likely run out of oxygen, given that they reportedly started with 96 hours of breathable air when they ventured underwater on Sunday morning. That is--if they even survived long enough to run out of oxygen. The United States Coast Guard announced Thursday afternoon that a remotely operated vehicle had found a debris field "discovered in the search area"; the Coast Guard is holding a press conference at 3 P.M. to share more. The submersible story is evolving quickly, but in the meantime, speculation about what could have happened is rampant. It's been hard to look away. The pressures at Titanic-wreck depths are crushing--"greater than the bite pressure exerted by some of the strongest jaws in the animal kingdom," as Sophie Bushwick at Scientific American put it.

Inside the sealed vehicle are OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush; British businessman turned adventurer Hamish Harding; father-and-son Shahzada and Suleman Dawood, who are members of one of Pakistan's wealthiest families; and Paul-Henry Nargeolet, a former French navy officer and leading Titanic expert. The U.S. Coast Guard headed a unified command that involved commercial assets, research vehicles and military counterparts from Canada, France and the United Kingdom.