May 21, 2021 10:17 am
SAN DIEGO (AP) An empty panga boat was found abandoned on San Diego’s Mission Beach early Friday.
Life jackets were found in the boat and on the sand, according to local media reports.
Pangas are a type of outboard-powered open boat favored by migrant and drug smugglers trying to skirt the U.S.-Mexico land border.
On Thursday, authorities said one person was killed and others were injured when a panga apparently attempted to smuggle migrants ashore on San Diego’s La Jolla coast.
On Monday, authorities took 23 people from a panga off Point Loma and earlier this month a cabin cruiser overloaded with 32 people foundered there, killing three people during a smuggling attempt.
Possible smuggling boat found off San Diego coast, third one recovered this week David Rouzer
Just one day after one person was killed and others were injured when a boat suspected to have been used for human smuggling got trapped in rough waters off California, an empty panga boat was found abandoned on San Diego’s Mission Beach early Friday, according to local reports.
A passerby spotted the boat on the shoreline of the beach around 5:45 a.m. with 12 life jackets inside, according to a U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) spokesperson and a local affiliate Fox 5 San Diego report. Several fuel containers were also found nearby, the spokesperson told Fox News.
If you’re driven on Interstate 8 and taken the West Mission Bay Drive exit over the past couple of years, you’ve likely seen the massive construction area over the bridge. The project is located on West Mission Bay Drive between I-8 and SeaWorld Drive, about 1.25 miles west of the I-8 and Interstate 5 interchange. The area connects Loma Portal and Midway District neighborhoods with SeaWorld, Mission Bay Park, and beach areas.
The project will replace the existing four-lane West Mission Bay Drive Bridge – which was built in the 1950s and features only two travel lanes north and southbound (four lanes total) – with two separate, three-lane structures, for a total of six lanes. The city said this will provide an “improved transportation link across the San Diego River.”