{"id":400438,"date":"2026-07-16T06:47:44","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T06:47:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/400438\/"},"modified":"2026-07-16T06:47:44","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T06:47:44","slug":"alcatraz-boat-capsizing-near-san-francisco-leaves-4-dead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/400438\/","title":{"rendered":"Alcatraz boat capsizing near San Francisco leaves 4 dead"},"content":{"rendered":"

One person has died and\u00a0three missing people are presumed dead after a three-deck pontoon vessel sank off the coast of Alcatraz Island in the San Francisco Bay, US<\/a> officials said Wednesday.<\/p>\n

A dog also died in the capsizing on Tuesday, and 16 others were saved by authorities.<\/p>\n

The island is home to the\u00a0famous former Alcatraz federal prison, which\u00a0now serves as a tourist destination. The prison was notorious for being\u00a0inescapable due to the strong ocean currents and cold Pacific waters that surround it.<\/p>\n

\"FirstIt’s one of the worst San Francisco boat tragedies in yearsImage: Noah Berger\/AP Photo\/picture alliance<\/p>\n

Alcatraz Island is about 1\u00a0mile (1.6 km)\u00a0off the shore\u00a0in the\u00a0bay.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Multi-pronged search effort called off<\/p>\n

Search and rescue teams looked for the missing people throughout the night.<\/p>\n

The Coast Guard called off the search operation at around sunset on Wednesday evening after hopes of finding them alive all but vanished.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Local police and fire teams had assisted the Coast Guard during the operation, which saw planes, boats and helicopters deployed.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

San Francisco fire chief Dean Crispen, in a video posted online by the city’s mayor,\u00a0said responders were dispatched due to a report of “a boat on fire, 600 yards of Alcatraz” Island around 3:35 p.m. local time (1035 GMT) on Tuesday.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Although there were reports that a fire had taken place on the boat, Crispen said, “We now don’t have any evidence of that.”\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Chrispen rescuers had found the three-deck pontoon vessel\u00a0capsized and almost completely underwater. The boat’s motor was still running and leaking fuel.\u00a0<\/p>\n

One dead person was found at the scene.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"SearchThe San Francisco Bay is famous for its cold water temperatures and strong currentsImage: Noah Berger\/AP Photo\/picture alliance<\/p>\n

San Francisco<\/a> Fire Department Lieutenant Elias Mariano told AFP news agency\u00a0that rescuers\u00a0had used “thermal imaging, tide prediction and modeling to help direct search efforts.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mariano called the capsized\u00a0vessel a “pontoon pleasure boat.” The boat was privately owned and it was\u00a0unclear if it was heading to Alcatraz at the time of its sinking.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Edited by: Wesley Rahn<\/p>\n

Don’t let the algorithm hide the news. If you rely on our team for trusted reporting, please take a moment to select us as\u00a0your Preferred Source in Google<\/a>, so you’ll always see our verified news first.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One person has died and\u00a0three missing people are presumed dead after a three-deck pontoon vessel sank off the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":400439,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[101,103,102,104,106,105],"class_list":["post-400438","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400438","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=400438"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400438\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/400439"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=400438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=400438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=400438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}