Rescue crews searched waters off Florida's Atlantic shore on Tuesday for 39 people reported missing by a survivor found clinging to a boat that capsized in what the U.S. Coast Guard called a suspected human smuggling operation gone awry.

The survivor told authorities after his rescue that he had left the Bahamas' Bimini islands, about 50 miles (80 km) east of Miami, in a boat with 39 other people on Saturday night, the Coast Guard said in a statement posted on Twitter.