A pair of pangas flipped off Black’s Beach in San Diego. Eight are dead. Photo: Screenshot//Onscene.tv
At least eight people are dead after a pair of human smuggling boats flipped in the waters off Black’s Beach in San Diego. According to reports, it’s one of “the deadliest maritime smuggling incidents in U.S. history.”
At about 11:30 p.m., 911 operators received a call from a woman speaking Spanish. She told dispatchers that she, along with seven others, were on a boat that capsized near La Jolla. She also said that a second boat with 15 people on it had met the same fate.
When crews responded to the call, they found both vessels, but none of the survivors remained on the scene. The woman who called 911 had vanished as well.
“This is one of the worst maritime smuggling tragedies that I can think of in California and certainly here in the city of San Diego,” Lifeguard Chief James Gartland of the San Diego Fire Department told the LA Times.
Dispatchers from 911 used the caller’s cellphone to figure out the exact location of the capsized boats. They pinpointed an area a little ways south of Torrey Pines Gliderport. Rescuers were not initially able to gain access to the area because of a high tide, so they entered from the north side and waded through waist-deep water. Once there, they found the first of the deceased.
“After a couple hundred yards, lifeguards on the beach reached dry sand and then began to find lifeless bodies and two overturned pangas spread over an area of about 400 yards,” a statement from the San Diego Fire-Rescue Department said. “Several life jackets and fuel barrels were also found.”
Although a Coast Guard helicopter was dispatched to search for survivors in the water, poor visibility made it nearly impossible.
“They couldn’t see the water very well, even with night-vision goggles,” said Coast Guard Capt. James Spitler, the commander of the Coast Guard’s San Diego sector. “They did a few legs of the search pattern and determined that the risk exceeded their ability to do a search effectively, so they returned to base.”
Ground crews diligently worked through the night to recover the bodies of those who died near the iconic San Diego surf spot. None of the victims were children.
“We did the best we could to recover people from the water,” said Gartland.
It’s not known exactly how many people were on the boats, nor the age, nationality, or names of those who died. Carlos González Gutiérrez, the consul general of Mexico in San Diego, did release a statement on social media that says the victims were from Mexico. “We are working to identify people of Mexican origin and assist their families,” he wrote.
