Boat, iPhone of teens missing at sea found months later

JUPITER, Fla. -- A boat belonging to one of two Florida teenagers who went missing at sea last summer has been found, along with an iPhone, officials said.

"On March 18, 2016, Multi Purpose Supply Vessel Edda Fjord, while enroute to Norway, discovered a capsized small craft approximately 100 miles off the coast of Bermuda," Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission spokesman Rob Klepper said in a statement. "The boat was subsequently confirmed to be the boat that belonged to Austin Stephanos."

Austin and friend Perry Cohen, both 14, were last seen July 24 when they left Jupiter on a fishing trip. Lengthy searches by the Coast Guard and private pilots turned up no clues about their whereabouts.

The Coast Guard initially located the boat off New Smyrna Beach, but the company hired by the Coast Guard to bring the boat back couldn't find it.

Perry's mother, Pamela Cohen, posted a message to Facebook on Saturday about the discoveries, CBS affiliate WPEC reported.

"This is an open Missing Persons case, and we hope that FWC reopens their investigation and utilizes the expert resources of other government agencies as well as the private sector if necessary to extrapolate the data from the recovered IPhone," the statement said.

A separate post by the Perry Cohen Foundation thanked the captain and crew of the Norwegian ship for salvaging the boat.

Klepper said the boat will be returned to Florida next month in a shipping container.

"The personal effects that were onboard the boat will be returned to the families of the victims, and subsequent information retrieval efforts from any of those items will be at their discretion," Klepper said.