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From the LVRJ: Antonio Tucker’s family waited 10 months for closure.
Steve Schafer delivered it in less than two days.
The local dive instructor led the team that found the missing airman’s remains at the bottom of Lake Mead on Tuesday.
The search was launched Monday morning despite windy conditions. By Wednesday, Tucker’s body had been brought up from the dark, 280 feet down, to begin its journey back to his loved ones.
“It took less than four or five hours of actual search time,” said Schafer. “The biggest thing is to bring Antonio home. That’s what it’s all about.”
The Clark County coroner’s office positively identified Tucker’s body on Thursday. The 28-year-old staff sergeant stationed at Creech Air Force Base in Indian Springs is believed to have drowned, but the cause of his death has not yet been released....
Tucker was at the lake with a woman and a child on June 23 when he went under while trying to swim back to their boat in heavy winds.
As the National Park Service-led search dragged on, Schafer contacted the park to offer his help free of charge.
Schafer owns Earth Resource Group, a local environmental consulting firm with a marine division specializing in underwater survey and recovery work. He is also a dive instructor for dive instructors, with 20 years of experience exploring the deepest parts of Lake Mead.
After about a week of waiting for an answer, Schafer was told that the Park Service had all of the help it needed.
Vanover detailed that initial search effort Thursday, noting that the Park Service and three other federal and state agencies spent four days looking for Tucker over 11 square nautical miles.
When they couldn’t find his body using sonar and remote operated underwater vehicles, she said, “the decision was made to wait for the body to surface naturally, which is a process that occurs with the majority of unrecovered drowning victims.”
Vanover added that Lake Mead park rangers have conducted more than 200 search and rescues in the past three years, and Tucker was the only known missing person who hadn’t been recovered....
About a month after Tucker disappeared, Schafer tried to get information and approval to search for another drowning victim who went missing in Lake Mead in 2004. This time, he couldn’t get anyone at the park to answer his emails, so he hired a lawyer, filed a request for public documents and, earlier this year, applied for a special-use permit to search for Tucker on the family’s behalf.
Late last month, the Park Service finally cleared him for a search beginning Monday and lasting through April 26, excluding weekends.
Asked if he felt vindicated, Schafer said, “It proves the point. That would be an understatement I think.”...
As for Schafer’s team, Vanover said, “We should be able to utilize their services much more rapidly, if they express interest in supporting future search efforts.”
Schafer certainly hopes so.
“We’re absolutely on the table to help when we can. And certainly here at Lake Mead, we don’t want a dime — not for gas money or park entrance fees or anything else,” he said. “Whether they’ll pick up the phone or accept our help if we call, that remains to be seen.”  http://www.reviewjournal.com/news/military/body-recovered-lake-mead-confirmed-missing-airman
The BLM ought to be ashamed of themselves and owe Airman's Tucker's family an apology.
Schafer has ben trying for months to get the BLM off their high horses and allow him to search for Tucker.
But the BLM refused because they had such huge egos and it prolonger the agony of the Tucker family.
Heads need to roll because of this case was a case of the BLM in Las Vegas having such a big ego and in the end, they were proved wrong.