Parents Of Danielle Wright Continue To Hope To Find Their Missing Daughter

The parents of Danielle Wright and the other missing crew from the schooner, the Nina continue their search for their loved ones

The last time Danielle Wright's parents heard from her was June 4.

The 19-year-old University of Louisiana Lafayette student and six others are still being sought since the vessel went missing in June while they were sailing from New Zealand to Australia.

Danielle's parent, Ricky and Robin Wright went to Port Macquarie, Austalia about six weeks ago to continue their search for the Nina.

The Wright family says with the help of Macquarie Air, they were allowed to fly as spotters for 7 days straight, covering over 10,000 sq miles of ocean in the hopes of locating the satellite image of a drifting boat found in September.

They gave the image of the boat to New Zealand authorities, who told them they would search again, if new evidence came to light.

They say the authorities wasted four weeks making up their minds, and then telling the family, even if the boat caught on image were the Nina, there couldn't possibly be anyone left alive on the boat after four months adrift.

The family says it was another four weeks of wasted time that they could have been raising money for the search to continue.  They say after two months of drifting in very unpredictable currents, we were unable to find the boat.

Danielle's father, Ricky Wright has been learning how to fly so he can do more of the searching and cut costs.

They say the cost of searching runs anywhere from $10,000 - $20,000 per day. The family has spent over $500,000 on private searches.

They have made a friend in Australian pilot Ken Evers who has been using social media to get his pilot friends to look for the Nina.  He set up a new Facebook page called "Operation Nina".

Robin says that Ken and another volunteer pilot are picking Ricky and her on December 26th to fly them out to search all the islands and reefs off the coast near the Great Barrier Reef.

She adds that Evers' contacts have helped them locate a twin-engine Cessna with greater fuel capacity that will allow us to search 10 hours at a time. The price of the plane with fuel is going to run us around $600 hour, a discounted price that will help us greatly.

If you would like to donate, or if you would like more information about the search you can go to Facebook page, "Bringing Home the Nina and Crew"