Old Saybrook ― One person was killed, multiple people were injured, and two people are still missing after a boat struck a jetty at the mouth of the Connecticut River on Monday night.

The crash, described by a Coast Guard spokesman as a mass casualty incident, was called into the Old Saybrook Fire Department at 9:10 p.m. with the report a boat had crashed into a breakwall near Harbor One Marina.

Capt. Keith Williams of the Environmental Conservation Police, a division of the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, on Tuesday said one body was recovered from the 31-foot center console Fountain powerboat Monday night.

The search for the remaining men continued Tuesday as crews from DEEP, the Connecticut State Police dive team, the Coast Guard and East Lyme Police Department conducted search patterns amid shifting tides.

Williams said the group of nine people was coming from Block Island, where they had spent the day. He did not believe they were wearing life jackets.

“Right now, the effort is focused on finding the two missing males in and around the mouth of the river,” he said.

He classified the search as a recovery mission.

The names of the boat passengers were not released, but Williams said they were in their 20s and 30s with ties to shoreline communities in the area.

Williams on Tuesday evening told roughly 35 family members and friends gathered at the marina the search would be called off around 7:30 p.m., to resume Wednesday morning at 8 a.m. He said he also told them to keep hope for closure “sooner rather than later.”

“There’ s a lot of close family there and a lot of friends,” he said. “They all know each other very well; they’ve been out on the water a lot since they were kids.”

Afterward, some relatives and friends looked out from a gazebo at the marina onto the water. There were hugs shared and backs rubbed in consolation.

DEEP in a statement said the crash involved a single motorboat that was found floating, half-submerged, near the Harbor One Marina in Old Saybrook. There was significant damage to the boat, which struck the northern end of the east breakwall at the mouth of the river.

Multiple people were thrown from the boat when it crashed, DEEP said. The body of the man recovered Monday night was found inside the vessel. Six people were transported to area hospitals.

One of the victims, believed by Williams to be the operator and owner of the boat, remained in critical condition on Tuesday.

The boat was towed Tuesday shortly after 1 p.m. by a DEEP pickup truck to the agency’s marine headquarters on Ferry Road in Old Lyme. Williams said a reconstruction team will begin work “to try to determine, to a degree, what had happened.”

Williams said heavy damage to the bow and the keel directly below the bow to the middle of the boat indicated the boat was traveling at a considerable speed when the crash occurred. He said the reconstruction team would be examining the GPS unit on the boat for more specific information.

Williams said boaters in the area often skirt the slow-no-wake zone in the channel between the two breakwalls marking the mouth of the Connecticut River by keeping to the left of the eastern jetty.

The boat hit the curved breakwall at the far north end, according to Williams. He said there were lighted buoys in the channel but was not sure about lighting on the jetties.

He said DEEP would be assessing the jetty markers and visibility Tuesday night when the sun went down.

But he cautioned it’s the channel markers that boaters need to abide by on the water.

“Those channel markers are lit up and they’re lit up for a reason, because that’s where the Coast Guard wants you to traverse,” he said.

The six people were pulled from the water Monday night by responding boats, which included help from good Samaritans, the Coast Guard said. Numerous local agencies with boats and dive teams, more than 100 personnel, converged for the search and rescue effort.

Also responding were Middlesex Health EMTs and personnel from fire and police departments in Old Lyme, Waterford, Portland, Old Saybrook and Clinton.

The Coast Guard sent a vessel from Coast Guard Station New London and at one point late Monday had a helicopter coming from Cape Cod to join in the search.

Williams said the state police will resume the search Wednesday with its dive team and an airplane. DEEP is also asking for assistance from the Coast Guard and area fire and police departments.

On Sept. 4, 2023, four people were injured when a 38-foot cigarette boat collided with the same breakwall at 9:45 p.m.

Numbers were not available from DEEP by press time on the number of crashes in the area.