At Least 8 Dead After 2 Fishing Boats Carrying Migrants Capsize Near San Diego

Brandon Livesay
·2 min read
Boat salvager Robert Butler, right, and KC Ivers, left, prepare to move one of two boats on Blacks Beach, in San Diego. Authorities say multiple people were killed when two suspected smuggling boats overturned off the coast of San Diego, and crews were searching for additional victims California Boat Deaths, San Diego, United States - 12 Mar 2023
Boat salvager Robert Butler, right, and KC Ivers, left, prepare to move one of two boats on Blacks Beach, in San Diego. Authorities say multiple people were killed when two suspected smuggling boats overturned off the coast of San Diego, and crews were searching for additional victims California Boat Deaths, San Diego, United States - 12 Mar 2023

Gregory Bull/AP/Shutterstock

At least eight people are dead after two small fishing boats carrying migrants capsized off the coast of San Diego in the middle of the night Saturday.

San Diego Lifeguard Chief James Gartland told a press conference the scene was "one of the worst maritime smuggling tragedies that I can think of in California, certainly here in the city of San Diego."

Eric Lavergne from the Border Patrol's San Diego sector added that he believed the tragedy was "one of the most deadly maritime events in San Diego's history," per the San Diego Union-Tribune.

Authorities reportedly rushed to Black's Beach around 15 miles north of San Diego city center at about 11:30 p.m. on Saturday, March 11 after a 9-1-1 call was made by a Spanish-speaking woman who reported a pair of small wooden fishing boats known as "pangas" had capsized. One of the outboard-powered boats was reportedly carrying 15 people, while the other reportedly had eight people on board.

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Boat salvager Robert Butler, right, and KC Ivers, left, pick up items in front of one of two boats on Blacks Beach, in San Diego. Authorities say multiple people were killed when two suspected smuggling boats overturned off the coast in San Diego, and crews were searching for additional victims California Boat Deaths, San Diego, United States - 12 Mar 2023

Gregory Bull/AP/Shutterstock

While lifeguards "arrived in rescue mode," Gartland added that they discovered no survivors and that eight victims were discovered on the beach or in the water, per The New York Times.

"We did the best we could to recover people from the water, try and find survivors," Gartland said about the rescue attempt, which he added was made extremely difficult by a combination of a high tide, darkness and Black's Beach tall and near vertical cliffs.

Gartland added that after an initial hour-long search for survivors, the operation tragically turned into a five-hour recovery of victims and their belongings.

Capt. James Spitler, sector commander of the Coast Guard San Diego, said that authorities believe the boat carrying 15 people overturned in the surf. Pangas are frequently used by smugglers because they are inexpensive and difficult to detect, CBS 8 cited.

Boat salvager Robert Butler, front, picks up life preservers in front of one of two boats sitting on Blacks Beach, in San Diego. Authorities say multiple people were killed when two suspected smuggling boats overturned off the coast San Diego, and crews were searching for additional victims California Boat Deaths, San Diego, United States - 12 Mar 2023

Gregory Bull/AP/Shutterstock

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Videos from the beach show the pangas and an array of life jackets littering the sand of Black's Beach.

Spitler said there had been a 771% increase in human trafficking in the southern California coastal region, and that since 2021 there had been 23 lives lost at sea. "Sadly this tragedy continues and it has been happening for quite some time," he added.

"This is not necessarily people trying to find a better life," Spitler told reporters. "This is part of a transnational criminal organization effort to smuggle people into the United States. These people are often labor trafficked and sex trafficked when they arrive."