The U.S. Navy has called off the search for a sailor missing in Guam, assigned to the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz. Searchers pored over 11,000 square nautical miles in five days.
The Navy did not identify the missing sailor in a press release Thursday, though he has been identified as Information Systems Technician 2nd Class Gabriel D. Holt from Washington, Utah. Petty Officer Holt was first reported missing after he was unaccounted for as the USS Nimitz did a port call in Guam on Saturday.
The USS Nimitz left the unincorporated U.S. territory on Monday as the search for Petty Officer Holt continued.
He was last seen alive at 11:57 p.m. Friday between Hotel Nikko in Tumon, Guam, and nearby Gun Beach, the Guam Police Department wrote on Instagram.
“Our deepest sympathies are with the family, friends and shipmates of Petty Officer Holt. … This has been an extraordinarily challenging case, and the decision to suspend active efforts was not made lightly. … We committed every resource in hopes of bringing him home, and our hearts are with those who knew and served alongside him,” Capt. Doug Graber, commander of the Nimitz, said, according to the Defense Visual Information Distribution Service.
The Guam police told the military newspaper Stars & Stripes that they consider the case still open even though their collaboration with local and federal agencies in the search has ceased.
The half-century-old aircraft carrier is on its final deployment, having left California in March. Its stop in Guam was its first since leaving the West Coast, according to U.S. Naval Institute News.
