Coast Guard rescues 16 off Baja; survivor says 27 were aboard

The rescue so far: Survivors were brought to San Diego and taken to local hospitals. Scripps Mercy Hospital San Diego said it was treating three of them, including one person with a suspected shark bite and two treated for cold exposure. The Coast Guard and U.S. Navy were assisting Mexican authorities with two helicopters, a fixed-wing plane and a cutter, AP reported, and NBC 7 San Diego said Coast Guard units from Ventura and Sacramento joined the search.

Was it a smuggling boat? Early coverage leaned on that idea, but officials have not confirmed it. San Diego city spokesperson José Ysea first told local outlets that preliminary information pointed to human smuggling and that more bodies may be in the water; the city later said it had no information to indicate smuggling at this time. The Coast Guard said only that "the vessel was reportedly traveling along a route commonly associated with maritime smuggling; however, the circumstances surrounding the incident remain under investigation." U.S. Customs and Border Protection said its officers were not involved in the response. Headlines split along those lines: NBC 7 and the New York Post put a suspected smuggling attempt in their headlines, while AP and the Los Angeles Times led with the rescue and noted the smuggling route as context.

Conditions at sea: National Weather Service meteorologist Jonathan Suk in San Diego told AP that winds were about 10 knots from the north and northwest with 5-foot waves at the closest buoy, which he called windy but fairly typical for the area. The water was about 68 degrees Fahrenheit and the air about 70 degrees.

What's still unknown: how many people were really aboard, whether anyone has died, what caused the vessel to sink, where it started its trip and where it was headed, and who the passengers are. Reports also differ on whether crews saw boat debris, and on the exact distance from shore (about 140 miles per the Coast Guard and AP, about 120 miles per the Los Angeles Times).

Context: AP recalled that at least three people died in May 2025 when a panga flipped about 35 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border, and that eight people were killed in 2023 when two boats approached a San Diego beach in heavy fog and one capsized in the surf.

This is a developing search. As of midday Friday, no deaths had been officially confirmed. The figure of 27 people aboard comes from one survivor, as relayed by the Coast Guard. Reports differ on the location: the Coast Guard and AP say about 140 miles west of Ensenada, while the Los Angeles Times reported about 120 miles. AP quoted a Coast Guard spokesperson saying no vessel was seen, while the New York Post reported that crews found boat debris. A San Diego city spokesperson first said the boat was involved in human smuggling, and the city later said it had no information to indicate that; the Coast Guard has not confirmed it. Figures may change.