The Coast Guard suspended a search Monday night for seven people still missing after a small boat capsized in the surf off Del Mar beach north of San Diego.
Around 6:30 a.m. Coast Guard Sector San Diego watchstanders received a report of the overturned panga-style vessel from a local emergency dispatch, reporting three people had been found dead and four other injured. Local first responders learned from the survivors that seven more from the boat were unaccounted for.
The watchstanders directed an Air Station San Diego MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter, Station San Diego 45-foot response boat-medium, Air Station Sacramento C-27 Spartan aircraft, and the cutter Sea Otter to assist in the search effort for the missing persons.
San Diego television station KABC 7 reported Coast Guard officials said it was unclear where the boat came from before it capsized approaching the beach after dawn about 35 miles north of the Mexico border. He described the vessel as a panga. Pangas are open fishing boats commonly used by smugglers.
"They were not tourists," Coast Guard petty officer Chris Sappey told the television station. "They are believed to be migrants." Sappey described the vessel as a panga, open fishing boats with one or two outboard engines, commonly used by both Mexican fishermen and smugglers.
The capsize may be the deadliest migrant accident off southern California beaches since 2023, when one of two smugglers’ boats capsized approaching a San Diego beach in heavy fog, with eight deaths.
During the search Monday Coast Guard aircraft and vessels searched for a combined nearly 28 hours, covering more than 520 square nautical miles.
