Search continues for 11 missing after boat capsizes off Baja California

The US Coast Guard and Navy are searching for 11 people believed missing after a boat departing from Mexico capsized about 140 miles west of Ensenada, in an area the Coast Guard says is frequented by smugglers and outside US waters. Sixteen Mexican nationals were rescued on Friday; several had severe injuries consistent with shark bites.

A mayday call went out around 1 a.m. Friday, according to Coast Guard Lt. Santiago Tamburini. A rescue helicopter reached the site about two hours later, and it took a crew including a rescue swimmer roughly 90 minutes to pull the 16 people from the water. Survivors told officials 27 people were on board. Three were taken to Scripps Mercy Hospital San Diego — one for a suspected shark bite, two for cold exposure — while three others were evaluated at Scripps Memorial Hospital La Jolla and discharged. The Mexican consulate in San Diego confirmed all those rescued are Mexican nationals.

The operation itself is binational in practice: US Coast Guard and Navy aircraft, a cutter and a Navy combat ship, with the Mexican Navy assisting, while CBP investigates and interviews survivors on American soil. Survivors who are witnesses to a crime may be eligible for humanitarian parole and permitted to remain in the US for a limited period — a carve-out that turns testimony into the price of rescue.

The route has killed before. In 2023, eight people died when two boats approached a San Diego beach in heavy fog and one capsized in the surf — one of the deadliest maritime smuggling accidents off the US coast. In May 2025, at least three people died when a boat flipped off the coast north of the border. Petty Officer Charlie Valor put the mission plainly: 'We were able to help, and that's why we launched our assets.'

The Coast Guard has not said what kind of vessel sank, only that it went down in waters where no one was supposed to be watching.