Coast Guard Academy honors its own

New London— The U.S. Coast Guard Academy held a flag raising this morning to honor the crews of a Coast Guard plane and a Marine helicopter that collided Thursday.

The aircraft collided Thursday night as the Coast Guard was searching for a missing boater over the ocean near San Diego. Searchers found debris from both aircraft but no sign of the crew members. Seven people were aboard the Coast Guard C-130, two on the helicopter.

Coast Guard Lt. Cmdr. Che J. Barnes, the aircraft commander, and Lt. Adam W. Bryant, the co-pilot, were both academy graduates with degrees in mechanical engineering. Barnes, 35, graduated in 1996; Bryant, 28, in 2003.

The search for bodies and wreckage continued off the Southern California coast.
Helicopters, Navy and Coast Guard vessels continued their weekend search of more than 600 square miles of the Pacific, but there was scant hope of finding any survivors and the mission was now characterized as one of recovery, Coast Guard officials said.

In addition to debris, Coast Guard Lt. Josh Nelson said searchers would watch for the "black box" cockpit recorders carried by the aircraft. They might supply information about the final moments before the Coast Guard C-130 and the Marine Corps AH-1W Super Cobra helicopter collided.