The survivor clinging to the hull of the upturned boat
(Picture: US COAST GUARD/AFP via Getty Images)Rescue crews searched late into the night on Tuesday for 39 people reported missing in the Atlantic off Florida by a man found clinging to a boat that capsized in what the US Coast Guard called a suspected human smuggling attempt gone awry.
The survivor told authorities he had left the Bahamas' Bimini islands in a boat with 39 other people on Saturday night.
He said the group's vessel capsized on Sunday morning when it hit rough weather off Florida's Atlantic coast, about midway between Miami and Cape Canaveral. No one was wearing a life jacket.
A good Samaritan found the man perched on the mostly submerged hull of the overturned boat on Tuesday morning and rescued him before alerting the Coast Guard, which dispatched rescue vessels and aircraft to look for more victims.
The survivor was taken to hospital for treatment of dehydration and sun exposure.
Coast Guard crews spent Tuesday with helicopter teams, search planes and a US Navy air crew criss-crossing an area spanning more than 1,300 square miles to try to locate the missing people.
"Air and surface crews will continue searching throughout the night," the Coast Guard's Miami-based southeastern district office said on Twitter late on Tuesday.
The agency said in an earlier Twitter message that the incident was under investigation as "a suspected human smuggling venture." However, the nationalities of those who were aboard the vessel has yet to be determined, a Coast Guard spokesperson, Petty Officer Jose Hernandez, said.
Incidents of overturned or interdicted vessels crowded with people, many of them Haitians or Cubans seeking to reach the United States, are not uncommon in the waters off Florida.
In May of 2021, 12 Cuban migrants perished and eight were rescued after their boat flipped over off Key West, Florida.
At least 557 Cuban migrants in all have been picked up at sea by the Coast Guard since October, in addition to nearly 7,400 Cubans interdicted during the previous five years, according to the agency.
