Florida: 1 Body Found as U.S. Coast Guard Continues to Search for 38 Still Missing From Capsized Boat

The U.S. Coast Guard said Wednesday it had recovered a body during a search for 39 people whose boat capsized off Florida's Atlantic coast over the weekend.

In a news conference in Florida, Coast Guard Capt. Jo-Ann Burdian said a cutter crew found the deceased person and the body was brought to Fort Pierce, Florida for identification.

Burdian noted that search and rescue efforts for survivors would continue. She said an area of ocean about the size of New Jersey has already been searched.

U.S. Coast Guard Suspects It's a Human-Smuggling Boat That Capsized in Northern Straits of Florida

The accident resulted in at least one person dead and left a single known survivor as U.S. authorities launched a criminal investigation into suspected human smuggling, CNN reported.

"We do suspect that this is a case of human smuggling," Burdian said, adding that it occurred along a normal route for human smuggling from the Bahamas into the southeast U.S.

The 25-foot capsized boat was reportedly discovered on Tuesday at around 8 a.m., some 40 miles east of Florida's Fort Pierce Inlet.

A commercial vessel operator radioed that they saw a person clinging to the overturned boat's hull. According to Joshua Nelson, operations manager for the Jacksonville Fleet of Signet Maritime Corp. that owns the tugboat, they saw someone "who was pretty distraught" on the boat.

Before alerting the Coast Guard, Nelson told Reuters that they were towing a huge barge that was roughly 2,500 feet behind them, "so it (took) a little finesse to get close enough to the vessel and not cause any waves to knock the man off."

The survivor told authorities that he and 39 others had left Bahamas' Bimini islands in a boat on Saturday night. The rescued person noted that they encountered severe weather that caused the vessel to capsize.

The survivor added that no one on board the boat was wearing a life jacket.

Survivor From Capsized Boat in Florida in Stable Condition

According to Burdian, the rescued person was taken to a hospital for treatment of dehydration and sun exposure. But as of Wednesday, Burdian said the survivor was already in stable condition and was being questioned by U.S. Homeland Security officials.

According to the Coast Guard, the incident coincided with a small-craft advisory posted for the area, with steady winds reaching up to 23 miles per hour and 9-foot seas.

"Their decision to take to the sea is a complicated one. Certainly, the waters in the northern Florida Straits can be quite dangerous," Burdian noted.

In a statement, the Coast Guard said its cutter crews, helicopter teams, search planes, and a U.S. Navy aircrew searched an area spanning more than 7,500 nautical miles between Bimini and Fort Pierce Inlet as of Wednesday morning. It's about the size of Rhode Island.

Incidents of overturned or interdicted vessels crowded with people are not uncommon in the waters off Florida. Many of these individuals were Haitians or Cubans seeking to reach the U.S.

Anthony Salisbury, an agent with the Department of Homeland Security, told Reuters that there had been an increase in these human smuggling groups trying to smuggle individuals into the country over the last year. He added that these organizations are criminals preying on the migrant community.

This article is owned by Latin Post.

Written by: Jess Smith

WATCH: Coast Guard Searching for 38 People After Boat Capsizes Near South Florida; 1 Confirmed Dead - From ABC Action News