Florida Keys and Miami area top list as deadliest places in the state for boat crashes
The Florida Keys tops the list of boat crashes in the state, including those involving deaths, according to a report released by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
The agency — which enforces conservation and boating laws, and investigates vessel crashes — on Thursday reported 735 boat crashes in state waters in 2022. Sixty-five of those involved deaths.
That’s actually down from the 751 boat accidents in 2021, according to the report.
The Keys topped the list of both crashes and fatalities — 92 crashes, 9 deaths and 57 injuries.
Miami-Dade, which had the most accidents in the state in 2021, was ranked second in 2022, with 90 crashes and 8 deaths, according to the report. Fifty-seven people were injured on the water in the county, according to the report.
As in the 2021 report, Palm Beach County came in third in crashes and deaths — 49 and 2, respectively.
Rounding out the top 10 are Pinellas, Lee, Okaloosa, Broward, Hillsborougn, St. Johns and Sarasota counties.
Florida tops the list of crashes, deaths and injuries on the nation’s waterways largely because of numbers. The state has the most registered vessels in the country — 1,029,993, according to Fish and Wildlife.
High-profile boat crash under investigation
One of the most high-profile boat crashes last year happened on the maritime border between Miami-Dade and Monroe counties when a vessel driven by George Pino, a prominent businessman and president of a Doral-based real estate brokerage firm, slammed into a channel marker in the Upper Florida Keys.
The tragedy shook the Miami-Dade Catholic school community. Luciana Fernandez, 17, an Our Lady of Lourdes Academy student, was killed. And her classmate, Katerina Puig, was permanently injured when she and the other 13 people on the 29-foot Robalo center console boat were ejected into the Intracoastal Waterway on Biscayne Bay.
The crash remains under investigation nearly one year later by the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and the Miami-Dade County State Attorney’s Office, said Ed Griffith, spokesman for the prosecutor.
“Issues and evidence direct every investigation,” Griffith said Thursday when asked if the investigation was taking longer than probes into similar crashes. “The clock itself does not.”
Puig’s family filed a lawsuit in March in Miami-Dade County against Pino. The case is pending.
Other findings in the Florida boating crash report
▪ The leading type of accident was a boat colliding with another vessel.
▪ The leading cause of death from boating accidents was drowning, with 38 drowning deaths in 2022.
▪ 319 boat accidents resulted in 457 people injured.
▪ Personal watercraft account for 16% of all registered vessels in Florida, but accounted for 174, or 24%, of all boat accidents in 2022.
▪ Alcohol and drug use was involved in 13% of all boat accidents last year.
This story has been updated to correct the type of lawsuit filed against George Pino.
