Search halted with seven missing after boat thought to be carrying migrants capsized off San Diego

SAN DIEGO (AP) — The U.S. Coast Guard has suspended its search for seven people who went missing after a boat believed to be carrying migrants capsized off the San Diego coast, officials said Tuesday.

The search effort stopped late Monday after crews combed the area via helicopter and a cutter for hours following the early-morning capsizing of the boat, which killed at least three people whose bodies were recovered and injured at least four others who were rescued and taken to a hospital, Petty Officer Hunter Schnabel told The Associated Press.

Nine people were initially reported missing, but two were later found and detained, Schnabel said. He didn't know which agency detained the individuals or why. The U.S. Border Patrol did not immediately respond to an email asking if it was involved.

It isn't clear if any of the seven people who were reported missing made it to shore on their own and left the area. Schnabel said they will be considered missing or unaccounted for unless there is a new development.

Petty Officer Chris Sappey said it isn't known where the boat was coming from before it flipped shortly after sunrise about 35 miles (56 kilometers) north of the Mexico border. He described the vessel as a panga, which is a single or twin-engine open fishing boat commonly used by smugglers.

Migrants are increasingly turning to the risky alternative offered by smugglers to travel by sea to avoid heavily guarded land borders, including off California’s coast. Pangas leave the Mexican coast in the dead of night.

In 2023, eight people were killed when two migrant smuggling boats approached a San Diego beach in heavy fog. One capsized in the surf. It was one of the deadliest maritime smuggling cases in waters off the U.S. coast.

A federal judge sentenced a San Diego man to 18 years in prison in 2022 for piloting a small vessel overloaded with 32 migrants that smashed apart in powerful surf off San Diego's coast, killing three people and injuring more than two dozen others.