Why the Coast Guard thinks tale 2 rescued sailors are telling sounds increasingly fishy

Jennifer Appel, right, and Tasha Fuiava sit with their dogs on the deck of the USS Ashland Monday, Oct. 30, 2017, at White Beach Naval Facility in Okinawa, Japan. The U.S. Navy ship arrived at the American Navy base, five days after it picked up the women and their two dogs from their storm-damaged sailboat, 900 miles southeast of Japan. (AP Photo/Koji Ueda)

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A tale of survival two women are telling about being stranded at sea is coming under scrutiny on several fronts. The latest red flag that they might be embellishing their journey came Monday when the U.S. Coast Guard announced that the two Hawaiian women never activated their emergency beacon.

The Coast Guard’s review of the incident as well as reviews with the women on the lost sailboat, Jennifer Appel and Tasha Fuiava, revealed they had the Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon (EPIRB) aboard but never turned it on, Coast Guard Lt. Scott Carr told The Associated Press.

The women, who met in late 2016 and within a week planned an 18-day trip to Tahiti, say they left Honolulu with their two dogs aboard a 50-foot sailboat on May 3. They said their sailing equipment and engine failed and claimed they were close to giving up when the U.S. Navy rescued them last week, thousands of miles off course.

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Yet, when asked why they didn’t use turn on the beacon, they said they never felt “truly in distress” and that they didn’t think the situation was “dire” enough to warrant it, a spokesperson for Coast Guard District 14 confirmed to ABC News on Monday.

A number of other issues have caused the Coast Guard to raise eyebrows about the women’s story. They said they had six other forms of communication that all failed.

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“There’s something wrong there,” said Phillip R. Johnson, a retired Coast Guard officer who was responsible for search and rescue operations, in a telephone interview with the AP from Washington state.

Also called into question is women’s claim of encountering a tropical storm on their first night at sea in May. National Weather Service records show no organized storms in the region in early May.

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