Coast Guard searching for 16 people missing off the coast of Florida
The US Coast Guard is searching for 16 people missing off the coast of Florida from two different boats.
The first search began after a man was rescued from the water by a good Samaritan Friday, two days after his boat capsized. The man was found about 23 miles off the coast of Fort Pierce, according to USCG Southeast.
The Coast Guard responded and took the man, a Jamaican national, to a hospital.
The man told the Coast Guard he and six others were in a boat that capsized Wednesday. The boat departed from Bimini, Bahamas.
The second search involves a “6-foot makeshift vessel” that went missing off the coast of Key West, the Coast Guard said. The vessel departed Havana, Cuba, Friday with 10 people on board.
The vessel was spotted by an individual near Key West on Sunday, according to a tweet from the US Coast Guard Seventh District. It was located about eight miles south of Long Key and the search is ongoing for the ten missing people, the USCG said.
A spokesperson for USCG told CNN it’s unclear why the vessel went missing.
The Coast Guard deployed search planes and multiple boats to search for survivors.