An NPR member station
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

CDA Authorities Continue Search For Two Crash Victims

Idaho Department of Lands

The recovery effort continued this afternoon [Wednesday] for what is believed to be the final two bodies from Sunday’s plane crash over Lake Coeur d’Alene.

Kootenai County Sheriff’s Lt. Ryan Higgins says his agency’s sonar team is scouring one section of the area where the two planes that collided entered the lake.

“If we are unable to find the remaining two victims today and we’ve exhausted all of our abilities, we’ll hand the scene over to the recovery agency and we will work very, very closely with them because, if they’re able to be found by the sonar team outside the crash wreckage, we think they may be in the crash wreckage and the sonar team and the equipment they have just can’t see that," Higgins said.

The bodies of six people have been found. Five of the six were aboard a seaplane that was taking a scenic flight over the lake. The victims include the pilot of the plane, 58-year-old Neil Lunt from Liberty Lake, and 48-year-old Sean Fredrickson from Lake Oswego, Oregon. They also include three children and stepchildren of Fredrickson, two of them 16 years old, one a male, one a female, and an 11-year-old male. Authorities say one other man was aboard that plane; he hasn’t yet been identified. There were two people aboard the second plane. They have been identified, but relatives haven’t yet been notified.

After the search for bodies is finished, Higgins says a salvage company hired by the insurance companies will come in and try to recover what’s left of the two planes.