Father of Missing Danielle Wright Asking For Community Help

Ricky Wright the father of Danielle Wright, a UL Lafayette student who was on board a sail boat that went missing between Australia and New Zealand visited 'Mornings With Ken and Bernie' today to describe search efforts and to solicit donations to help defray the cost.

The sail boat "Nina" left port on May 28th and should have completed it's trip two weeks later.  The Wright family has not been in contact with their daughter since the "Nina" survived 25 foot waves and 60 mph winds.  A search of nearly 700,000 square miles has been conducted but according to Wright a larger area must be searched even though New Zealand has called off search efforts.

According to Wright,

New Zealand has a population of approximately 4 million people which is about the size of Louisiana and so I'm asking the US government to pony up and put in as much as New Zealand has done.

When asked if he was getting any response from Congress Wright replied,

A group meeting was held yesterday with representatives from the six different sates, because there are six Americans on the missing boat...there's beginning to be some headway to make resources available for an expanded search.  I know there's a US aircraft carrier off the Great Barrier Reef that could join the search.

Wright urged listeners to contact their Congressmen and Senators to ask for government involvement and he also asked for donations to fund search efforts by a private search firm.  Wright said,

Texas Equusearch is a tremendous organization.  We have daily meetings with them.  Contributions to the Texas Equuesearch effort can be made through the Community Foundation of Acadiana's website.

Listen to the interview: