Boat sinks off Baja California – 11 people still missing
Twenty-seven people were on board and 16 were rescued, some with shark-bite injuries. The US Coast Guard and the US and Mexican navies are continuing the search.
Symbolic image · Photo: Gabriel Flores Romero / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0 (cropped and resized)
The search continues for 11 people missing after a boat sank off Mexico's Baja California peninsula. The boat went down on Friday about 225 km west of Ensenada; survivors said 27 people were on board. A Mayday call came in at about 1am, and a rescue helicopter reached the site roughly two hours later.
Sixteen people were rescued. Several survivors had 'severe injuries consistent with shark bites', according to the US Coast Guard, which gave first aid on the way to San Diego. Multiple Coast Guard and US Navy aircraft and boats are involved in the search, with help from the Mexican Navy.
The area is popular with fishing and leisure boats but is also frequented by smugglers. The incident did not occur in US waters. In 2023, eight people were killed when a boat capsized off a San Diego beach, one of the deadliest maritime smuggling accidents off the US coast.