UPDATE - Two remaining occupants located
Coeur d’Alene, ID: On Wednesday, July 8th at around 6:45 pm, the Kootenai County Sheriff’s Office Sonar Team located the last two victims of Sunday’s plane accident and the main body of the second aircraft. They were located in about 124 feet of water. The Sonar Team, the Dive Rescue Team and technical rescue divers were able to recover one of the victims. The second victim is in the plane wreckage and was unable to be safely recovered at this time. The salvage team will focus on this wreckage first in order to recover the final victim. At the request of the Coroner’s Office, the remaining names of the victims are not being released at this time.
Due to still having one victim in the aircraft, the Kootenai County Sheriff’s Office will assist the recovery team and NTSB during the retrieval of the final victim. Once the final victim is recovered and turned over to the Coroner, the scene will be handed over to the NTSB. Efforts to start recovering the final victim and aircrafts will begin sometime today. The recovery efforts will be overseen by NTSB and contractors hired by the insurance company for the two aircrafts.
In order to ensure the safety of the personnel for the recovery, a portion of the lake around the crash site will be closed to boaters. This area will be marked with buoys. Also in the crash site area will be barges. These barges will be lit at night but boaters are asked to stay close to shore. Additionally, the Loffs Bay Boat Launch will be closed temporally while rescue efforts are taking place. It is unknown how long it will take to retrieve the watercraft but we will do everything we can to get the launch open as soon as possible.
More information will be released as the recovery efforts progress.