LOS ANGELES — Sixteen people were rescued from the Pacific Ocean off Mexico's Baja California coast on Friday after the U.S. Coast Guard responded to a May Day call reporting the vessel was sinking. Another 11 people were believed to be missing.
The vessel went down in an area frequented by smugglers transporting migrants to the U.S. but that is also popular with fishing and leisure boats.
No vessel, only debris, was found and it was unclear what type of boat was involved, the Coast Guard in San Diego said. It received reports of 27 people in the water approximately 140 miles (225 kilometers) west of Ensenada, Mexico, after getting the distress call at about 1 a.m. Friday.
By the time crews reached the area “people were holding onto each other, to debris, just treading and trying to stay above water before being rescued,” Coast Guard Lt. Santiago Tamburini said.
One person rescued was being treated for a suspected shark bite and two people were in critical condition, authorities said.
“Boats in that area can be for fishing, leisure, personal recreation. We just don’t know what they were doing out there. We all know it's a suspected smuggling route,” Tamburini said. He added that “the sea is unforgiving” in that area, and it was unclear if the vessel got lost, had engine failure, was swept out to sea or meant to go that far.
A person on the vessel transmitted the May Day call saying it was sinking, he said.
One person rescued said as many as 27 people had been on board, said Petty Officer Chris Sappey.
Two of the people rescued were Mexican nationals, the Coast Guard said in a statement. Those rescued were flown by helicopter to San Diego and transported to hospitals.
Three were taken to Scripps Mercy Hospital San Diego, including the person with a suspected shark bite and two people treated for cold exposure, said hospital spokesperson Janice Collins.
Two patients were in critical condition, said Matt Hoffman, a spokesperson for the city of San Diego. It was not clear if that included the suspected shark bite victim or the two people with cold exposure.
The Coast Guard and U.S. Navy were searching the area with two helicopters, a fixed-wing plane, a cutter and a Navy combat ship. The Mexican Navy in Ensenada also launched a search and rescue operation.
Conditions on the water at 1 a.m. Friday appeared to be windy but fairly typical for the area, according to National Weather Service meteorologist Jonathan Suk in San Diego. Winds out of the north and northwest measured about 10 knots (18.5 kilometers per hour) and waves measured 5 feet (1.5 meters) at a buoy north of Ensenada, he said.
“I wouldn’t want to be out there in a sea kayak,” Suk said. “For the vessels that usually operate out there, they’re usually built to handle things like that.”
The water temperature measured 68 degrees Fahrenheit (20 degrees Celsius) -- fairly warm for the Pacific -- and the air was 70 degrees Fahrenheit (21 degrees Celsius), Suk said.
Migrants are increasingly turning to the risky alternative offered by smugglers to travel by sea to avoid heavily guarded land borders. Small boats called pangas leave Baja in the dead of night and sometimes travel hundreds of miles (kilometers) north.
There have been several incidents in recent years of migrant vessels capsizing en route to California.
In May of 2025, at least three people died when a panga flipped off the coast about 35 miles (56 km) north of the U.S.-Mexico border. In 2023, eight people were killed in one of the deadliest maritime smuggling accidents off the U.S. coast, when two boats approached a San Diego beach in heavy fog and one capsized in the surf.
A federal judge sentenced a San Diego man to 18 years in prison in 2022 for piloting a small vessel overloaded with 32 migrants that smashed apart in powerful surf off the coast, killing three people and injuring more than two dozen.
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Brown reported from Billings, Montana. Amy Taxin contributed from Santa Ana, California.
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