3 die, 9 missing after panga-style boat overturns on beach in San Diego County

Three people are dead and nine others are missing after a “panga-style vessel” overturned in Del Mar, Calif., early Monday, authorities said.

The U.S. Coast Guard received a call around 6:30 a.m. from local authorities reporting that a boat with an estimated 16 people on board had overturned just north of Torrey Pines State Beach, said Hunter Schnabel, a Coast Guard public affairs officer.

Three people were confirmed dead and four others were in need of medical care. An estimated nine others were unaccounted for, Schnabel said. Information about the individuals’ conditions and identities was not immediately available.

It is not clear from where the vessel originated. State and federal agencies are searching the area by air, boat and land in an effort to locate the other individuals who were on board, Schnabel said.

Smuggling of immigrants by boat has long been a problem along the California coast.

But officials reported increases during the pandemic, with Border Patrol apprehensions rising significantly.

San Diego County is a hotbed for maritime smuggling, but Orange County and Los Angeles County have seen their share as well.

In 2022, at least eight people died when two migrant smuggling boats overturned near La Jolla. A year earlier, a man and two women died when a panga boat crashed into rocks at the base of the cliffs of Point Loma.