A commercial fishing boat sank on June 28, 2026, in the Strait of Georgia near Richmond, BC, with 10 people on board. Four people were pulled from the water and survived. The other six—four men and two women—are missing and presumed dead. Rescue efforts were called off at 9:45 p.m. that evening, according to the Times Colonist.

None of the 10 people were wearing life-jackets when the boat went down, the Kelowna Daily Courier reported. Canadian law says charter boats must have life-jackets on board for every passenger, but there's no strict rule forcing people to wear them. Now investigators will need to figure out what happened and whether the boat owner had the right equipment available.

Two of the four survivors were rescued by ordinary people, not rescue teams. A retired pilot named Brian Angus and a flight attendant named Dorothy Stauffer pulled three people out of the water before official help arrived, CBC reported. This shows how much luck matters in water emergencies—being near someone who can help makes the difference between life and death.

The Strait of Georgia is the body of water between Vancouver Island and mainland BC. It's busy with ships, fishing boats, and tourists all summer long. The water there is very cold year-round, which means people can lose body heat dangerously fast. Without a life-jacket or wetsuit, a person in cold water can survive only minutes to a few hours. When darkness falls and hours pass without finding someone, the chances of rescue become extremely small. That's why the official search stopped that same evening.

Police have taken over the case from the Coast Guard. This means investigators now want to understand what went wrong—whether the boat was in good condition, whether the captain did anything wrong, and whether the law was followed. A national transportation safety board will investigate. There may also be a coroner's inquest and possible criminal charges depending on what they find.

Boat charter companies operate with loose rules compared to other industries. Inspectors check boats when they get their licenses, but they don't watch them every day on the water. A few years ago, another boat capsized off Tofino and six people died. That accident led to some new safety rules, but the problems weren't fully solved.

We don't know yet who the missing people are, or exactly what caused the boat to sink. Investigators will need to answer those questions. The answers matter not just for this one incident, but for the thousands of fishing charters that take people out on BC's coast every summer.