BRAZORIA COUNTY, Texas – The bodies of a father and son who went missing in the Brazos River on Tuesday were found.
Texas Parks and Wildlife Department search crews located Brandon Orr at 10 a.m. Wedbesday near the intersection with the Intracoastal Waterway. Coast Guard and Brazoria County Rescue crews found Phillip Orr at 11 a.m. in the same area, about a mile downriver from where the boat was located Tuesday morning.
Officials said the father and son were last seen fishing in a commercial crab boat in the Brazos River south of Freeport.
Both men were experienced crab fishermen and both knew how to swim. However, their life preservers were still in the boat when it was found unmanned, running in circles at half-throttle in the river. A "kill" switch rigged to the craft to allow the pilot to stop the engine in the event of an emergency wasn't deployed.
"Whatever caused them to end up out of the boat, you can only speculate. (The) best guess is one of them may have fallen out off the boat and the other went in after him," Capt. Nick Harmon with Texas Parks & Wildlife said.
The Brazoria County Sheriff's Department notified the Coast Guard station in Freeport about 9:20 a.m Tuesday after workers at a fuel terminal reported spotting the boat circling in the river. Boats and a U.S. Coast Guard helicopter were used in the search.
Authorities said keys were in the ignition of the boat and two cellphones were found.
Crews from Coast Guard Air Station Houston and Coast Guard Station Freeport searched, along with crews from the Brazoria County Sheriff's Department, Brazoria County Rescue, the Freeport Police Department and the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.