Boat Capsizes Near Liberty Island, Killing Woman and 5-Month-Old Infant, 12 Others Rescued

A woman and a five-month-old infant are dead after a boat capsized in New York Harbor near Liberty Island on Saturday night, August 8. Twelve other people survived.

The NYPD said officers responded to a 911 call around 10:25 p.m. reporting an overturned vessel near the Statue of Liberty's home island. By the time police arrived, 12 of the 14 people aboard had already been pulled from the water, according to the NYPD.

NYPD divers later located a woman and an infant still in the water. Both were rushed to NYU Langone Hospital in Brooklyn in critical condition. Both were pronounced dead at the hospital, according to Fox News Digital and CNN, which cited the same NYPD statement.

A police source told Fox News Digital the vessel was a 22-foot bowrider, a common style of open recreational motorboat. VT.co, citing the New York Post, reported the infant who died was five months old. The identities of the woman and child have not been released.

Some of the other passengers were also taken to the hospital and are believed to be in stable condition, police said. The NYPD's Harbor Unit, Scuba Team and Aviation Unit responded alongside the U.S. Coast Guard. FDNY helicopters were also seen over the scene, according to VT.co.

What actually flipped the boat is still unknown. The Coast Guard said investigators were headed to interview the vessel's captain as part of an ongoing inquiry into what caused the capsizing, according to CNN. No cause has been confirmed publicly by any agency.

No arrests have been made and no charges have been filed. A capsizing this deadly on a summer weekend night naturally invites speculation about overcrowding, alcohol, weather, or operator error, but none of that has been established on the record. The NYPD, Fox News, and CNN all describe the cause as under investigation, not determined.

New York Harbor has seen fatal boating incidents before, including a case prosecutors have described involving a drunk repeat offender in an 80-mph collision that killed a woman, a separate case Fox News referenced in its coverage. That prior case has no connection to Saturday's capsizing and shouldn't be conflated with it. Each incident needs its own facts before anyone assigns blame.

VT.co's report, drawing on the Daily Mail and New York Post, added a detail the other outlets didn't include: survivors at NYU Langone were reportedly still wearing their life jackets when family members arrived, and at least one relative was overheard crying out in grief in the hospital. This offers a human window on the scene but bears no relevance to how the boat was operated.

It also remains unclear whether the woman and infant who died were related, and the exact number of people originally aboard is still fuzzy between the 12-rescued figure police gave and reports of up to 14 people in the water total. NYPD's own numbers indicate 14 total people involved, 12 rescued alive before officers arrived, then the two additional bodies located afterward by divers.

The investigation into the cause—whether it was mechanical failure, overloading, wake from another vessel, weather, or driver error—is still open. The Coast Guard's interview with the captain is the next concrete step. Until that's done and until the NYPD or Coast Guard release findings, any theory about why a 22-foot bowrider flipped over in the harbor on a Saturday night remains unconfirmed.