The U.S. Coast Guard has called off a search in the Gulf of Mexico for a pilot who flew a small aircraft hundreds of miles beyond its intended destination in Louisiana.
The search for 63-year-old Steven Stone Schumacher was suspended on Oct. 20.
Officials said his family reported him missing on Wednesday night after he failed to arrive in Gonzales, Louisiana, from Missouri.
A Coast Guard statement released Sunday said U.S. crews and the Mexican Navy spent about 21 hours searching for his Piper Aztec.
The agency previously stated the plane’s last known position was about 440 miles off Louisiana’s coast flying about 50 feet above water.
Officials haven’t said what they think happened.
Steven Stone Schumacher
Schumacher is a trauma surgeon with Cape Trauma Specialists, a partner organization with St. Francis Healthcare System of Cape Girardeau, St. Francis president and CEO Maryann Reese said in an emailed statement.
“The Saint Francis Family is keeping the Schumacher family in our thoughts and prayers,” she wrote.
According to his LinkedIn profile, he has worked with St. Francis since July 2017, while also working for much of that time with University Hospitals Cleveland in Ohio.
He has worked for hospitals in New York City, Kettering, Ohio, and St. Petersburg, not to mention four months teaching surgery for the University of Virginia School of Medicine in Butare, Rwanda, the profile showed.
He graduated from Louisiana State University with a bachelor of science degree, received his medical degree in 1990 from LSU School of Medicine in New Orleans, was an LSU resident in general surgery from 1990 to 1995, and did postgraduate work in 2007 and 2008 at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, according to his profile.
