Posted on: Friday, November 30, 2001

Navy suspends search for sailor

Advertiser Staff

The Navy yesterday suspended the search for a sailor missing from a Pearl Harbor-based destroyer who is presumed to have been lost at sea in the Indian Ocean.

Officials said a 50-hour search failed to locate Petty Officer 2nd Class Randy Glenn Whitaker, 44, of Trinidad, Texas. Whitaker was reported missing Tuesday at the 6 a.m. muster aboard the guided missile destroyer USS Russell.

The search involving the Russell, the guided missile cruiser USS Vincennes, two embarked SH-60B Seahawk helicopters, and two Navy P-3C Orion Maritime Patrol aircraft covered 3,500 square nautical miles, the Navy said.

Whitaker, an information systems technician who enlisted in the Navy in June of 1998, served aboard the Russell since June of last year. He was last seen at 4:30 a.m. on Tuesday when the Russell was 740 nautical miles southwest of India.

The Russell was en route to a six-month deployment to the Middle East. The destroyer, with a crew of 24 officers, 30 chief petty officers, and 278 sailors, left Pearl Harbor on Oct. 25.