I don't think they were pretending to look, they were just (rightly) remaining open to it being either rescue or recovery. From the article:

> “While not definitive, this information was immediately shared with the Incident Commander to assist with the ongoing search and rescue mission.”

So:

* They knew about it and quickly aided in the search.

* They did not broadcast the details of the collection to the public.

That seems like the right call to me.