Coast Guard suspends dayslong search for expert diver who disappeared at sea

The search for 44-year-old Thomas “Tommy” Faulkenberry, a retired Coast Guard lieutenant and expert diver who disappeared at sea last Wednesday, has been suspended after a tireless effort from the Coast Guard and civilian search teams, including his own brother, Weston.

Weston Faulkenberry, a U.S. Army Sergeant First Class in Special Operations based in North Carolina, told NBC6 he dropped everything and drove to the Keys to join the search for his brother, running on "pure adrenaline" for four or five days.

“U.S. Army Special Operations has trained me. When it's time to go, it's time to go," Weston said. "And you flip a switch, you know, and you don't put your emotions on. You go and you find your objective."

The Coast Guard says it spent 152 combined hours searching an area roughly the size of Connecticut, spanning 4,300 square miles, before announcing the suspension of the search on Monday.

Weston says Tommy was at sea volunteering for a chartered tour of the USS Vandenberg, a decommissioned ship sunk intentionally in 2009 to serve as an artificial reef, when the accident occurred.

"He was in the water first. They handed him the hang tank and it got away from him somehow," Weston recalled. "And so he went to go get it and then he just never resurfaced."

Weston says he’s uniquely trained for search and rescue missions as an Army special operator and wanted to do everything he could to help the volunteers who went looking for Tommy. 

“They were doing an amazing job, but they were just become coming. So emotionally tired and physically tired," he said. "And so I said, ‘Let me help you,’ and I started taking a lot of responsibilities from them just because I'm uniquely qualified as a special operator to lead these kind of searches. And so I used what they had started, and then we ran with it."

Weston says he’s extremely grateful for the volunteers who went out daily searching for Tommy. 

He tells NBC6 hundreds of people from around the world reached out to him for updates, which he posted on social media up until the search was suspended.

“As the day closer to Monday came, that was when I started, you know, to break down a little," he said. "And I wanted to process it as a brother."

Weston reflects on his brother's lasting legacy, leaving behind a wife, four sons, and a deep connection to the ocean.

“I take comfort in the fact that my brother has told me on many occasions that when he dies, that he wants to become one with the ocean," Weston said. "He and his twin sister would always be in the water. And so for him to go, he went in the right place. He is exactly where he wanted to be, exactly where God needed him to be and where God placed him. So that way he can always surround us."

You can find more information on how to assist Tommy’s family here.