Craig Hoskie, 22, a student at the Naval Air Technical Training Center in Florida, who disappeared from a Pensacola, Fla., beach around 12:30 a.m. April 12, is presumed to have drowned, the Pensacola News Journal reported.

Hoskie, a 2004 graduate of Window Rock (Ariz.) High School who apparently joined the U.S. Navy out of Albuquerque, was drinking with some Navy friends on Pensacola Beach the night he disappeared, the News Journal reported.

A friend who left him sitting on a lounge chair on the beach returned about two hours later and found Hoskie's clothing but couldn't find Hoskie, the paper reported.

Troy Brown, a missing-persons investigator with the Escambia County Sheriff's Office, told the News Journal Wednesday that he and other investigators had ruled out foul play in Hoskie's disappearance as well as the theory that Hoskie may have been absent without leave.

"We're pretty confident that he drowned," Brown told the paper. "We just don't have his body, which means we have to keep an open investigation."

But after nearly two months since Hoskie's disappearance, Brown told the paper the active investigation had long since concluded.

"Our guys out at the beach are well aware of it, and all of the charter boat captains are well aware of it," Brown told the News Journal. "Every expert we talked to said if he did come up soon after, he would have been taken out to sea fairly quickly." 

10:35am 4/21/08 -- Family Thinks Missing Sailor Still Alive: Meeting with Navajo healer before leaving for Florida gives Craig Hoskie's family hope.

The family of Craig Hoskie, the 22-year-old sailor who disappeared from a Pensacola beach early on April 12, arrived on the Gulf Coast last week from Fort Defiance, Ariz., to be close to the search, according to WEAR ABC-3, a television station in Mobile, Ala., Pensacola and Ft. Walton Beach, Fla.

Hoskie, a trainee at the Naval Air Technical Training Center, disappeared from the beach around 12:30 a.m. a week ago Saturday, leaving behind his clothes, wallet and cell phone, according to earlier reports.

Since then, the Escambia County (Fla.) Sheriff's Office and U.S. Navy investigators have mounted a land and sea search for Hoskie but without success, WEAR reported.

Kevin Hoskie, who arrived Thursday with his mother, Alberta Wauneka, told WEAR that before the two left their home in Fort Defiance they held a traditional Navajo ceremony to give them spiritual guidance in the search for the missing sailor.

"What we heard from the traditional side of our family is that he stayed away from the water and he went out of town with a friend or somebody he met," Kevin Hoskie told WEAR.

Wauneka also sent a message to her son through the television station in the Navajo tongue, which translated into English said, "Son, I love you. We all love you and miss you. Call us, call, go back to base, call, turn yourself in. You're not in trouble."

Craig Hoskie, who was described in early reports as being from Albuquerque, was a 2004 graduate of Window Rock High School where he won the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Navajo Nation's Youth of the Year award for the senior division.

10:45am 4/15/08 -- ABQ Navy Man Missing Since Saturday: Deputies scanning Pensacola beach for sign of 22-year-old Craig Hoskie.

The Escambia County (Fla.) Sheriff's Office is continuing its search today for a Navy trainee from Albuquerque who has been missing since early Saturday, the Pensacola News Journal reported this morning. (Thanks to e-mailer Jonathan Davis for giving us the heads-up.)

Craig Hoskie, 22, a student at the Naval Air Technical Training Center, has been missing since about 12:30 a.m. Saturday, but was not reported missing until 3:30 p.m. Sunday, the sheriff's office told the News Journal.

It's unclear why Hoskie's disappearance wasn't reported sooner, sheriff's office spokesman Glenn Austin told the paper.

Hoskie and his friends, all of whom are in the U.S. Navy, arrived at Pensacola Beach around 6 p.m. Friday, bought beer and checked into a Days Inn, according to a sheriff's office report.

After drinking and walking around the boardwalk, the men returned to their hotel room around 9 p.m. Friday, continued to drink, than decided to go for a walk and a swim in the Gulf of Mexico, the report said.

One of Hoskie's friends, 21-year-old Kyle Hamilton, told deputies he went back to the hotel after about an hour, and at that time he saw Hoskie sitting in a lounge chair on the beach, the News Journal said.

About two hours later, Hamilton told deputies, he found Hoskie's clothing, but there was no sign of Hoskie, the paper reported.

Hamilton told deputies at the time that he was "severely intoxicated" and that Hoskie had been "intoxicated to a lesser degree," according to the report.

The U.S. Coast Guard searched the Gulf for about an hour and a half on Monday but found no sign of Hoskie, and area boaters have been asked to keep a lookout for anyone in the water, the News Journal reported.

Deputies are scanning the beach today using ATVs, and security from the Pensacola Naval Air Station as well as the Naval Criminal Investigation Service are assisting the sheriff's department with the search, the paper said.

Hoskie has been at the Pensacola Naval Air Station since January and began classes at the technical training center on April 8, a spokesman for the NAS told the News Journal.

He had been training to be an aviation support equipment technician, the paper said. 

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