STEPHON NICHOLAS

GML To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

A pri­vate he­li­copter has joined the des­per­ate search for miss­ing To­ba­go fish­er­men David McLean and Kester Alexan­der.

Both men left on a fish­ing ex­pe­di­tion aboard Preda­tor, a 24-foot pirogue with Yama­ha en­gines, reg­is­tra­tion TFT 2490, on Fri­day morn­ing, and were ex­pect­ed back at 5 pm.

As night reached and they re­mained ab­sent, con­cerned rel­a­tives be­came un­easy.

Ef­forts to con­tact them via cell­phone were al­so un­suc­cess­ful.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands both men are sea­soned sea­men. The last GPS lo­ca­tion of the boat was shared to po­lice, Coast Guard, the To­ba­go Emer­gency Man­age­ment Agency (TEMA) and fish­er­folk.

All To­ba­go Fish­er­folk As­so­ci­a­tion (AT­FA) pres­i­dent Cur­tis Dou­glas said boats are look­ing for the men.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands rel­a­tives of the men were in­formed last night by Coast Guard that they did not have any avail­able ves­sel.

A rel­a­tive of one of the men is call­ing on the au­thor­i­ties and oth­er fish­er­men to help find the miss­ing men.