Eleven people are missing after a boat capsized in the Pacific, about 140 miles west of Ensenada, Mexico. The US Coast Guard rescued 16 survivors, several with injuries consistent with shark bites, but ended its search on Sunday.
A boat with an estimated 27 people on board capsized early on Friday, October 16. The mayday call reached the Coast Guard at about 1 a.m., with a helicopter arriving at the boat around two hours later. In 90 minutes 16 people were successfully rescued from the water.
Coast Guard crews said the survivors were “holding onto each other, to debris,” and treading water until they were rescued. A crew from Air Station Ventura picked them up and flew them to San Diego, where they are now receiving treatment at several hospitals. According to the Mexican consulate in San Diego all 16 are Mexican nationals.
The injuries of the rescued
The Coast Guard said that three of the people rescued had severe injuries that looked like shark bites, and crews gave them first aid on the way to San Diego. Two of them were reported to be in critical condition. None of the survivors have publicly described what happened in the water.
Officials haven’t said what happened to the 11 who are missing, and there’s no confirmation that sharks were involved, but the Pacific off Baja California is shark country. Guadalupe Island, about 150 miles off the peninsula’s west coast, is one of the world’s best-known gathering places for great white sharks.
Diving operators there run trips from about July to November, and say the largest females tend to arrive in October and November. They have identified hundreds of individual great whites in the island’s waters.
Scientists who track white sharks in the eastern Pacific have found that they feed at coastal sites like Guadalupe from around August to December, then head out to the open ocean. Some travel to a mid-Pacific area which researchers refer to as the White Shark Café, located roughly halfway between Baja California and Hawaii.
Bites on people are rare, however. The International Shark Attack File, run by the Florida Museum of Natural History, notes that most bites in its database involve unidentified species. The file confirmed 65 unprovoked bites worldwide in 2025, including nine deaths, in line with recent averages.
It says the total “remains extremely low.” 25 of them happened in the US and five of those in California and out of those one was fatal. California’s wildlife authorities say white sharks have been responsible for all documented shark fatalities in the state.
Why the search was ended
Coast Guard crews from San Diego, Sacramento and Ventura searched alongside the US Navy and Mexican authorities, covering more than 2,400 square miles of ocean. The search was then suspended on Sunday, October 18, because of rough weather and the remote location.
“Suspending a search is never easy, and this was an exceptionally dynamic case, far offshore, in rough weather. We can say with confidence that human traffickers have zero regard for human life and routinely put the lives of illegal aliens and the lives of rescue crews at risk,” captain Joseph Meuse, chief of staff for the Coast Guard Southwest District, said, adding: “We are grateful for the exceptional coordination and assistance from Mexico and the US Navy throughout this challenging operation.”
The cause of the capsizing hasn’t been made public, and officials haven’t said where the boat was headed or who the 11 missing people are. According to the Coast Guard the boat was travelling on a route typically associated with illegal maritime smuggling operations. The incident is now under federal investigation.
Read more:
