Update: Search for missing boaters suspended due to high winds
<p>Don Sausser of Coeur d’Alene took this photo of the Coeur d’Alene Fire Boat at 10 p.m. Saturday as it transported victims of a two-boat collision to the Third Street docks. Several people were taken to Kootenai Health with injuries.</p>
COEUR d’ALENE — Three people remain missing after Saturday night’s boat crash south of Stevens Point on Lake Coeur d’Alene. Rescue teams searched for the missing people all day Sunday and Monday.
The three missing adults are all presumed drowned. They have been identified as Justin M. Luhr, 34, of Medical Lake, Wash., and his two passengers, Justin T. Honken, 21, of Post Falls, and Caitlin A. Breeze, 21, of Spokane.
The three were in a 1989 Formula 223LS that was either stationary or moving northbound at the time of the crash, about 9:15 p.m. Saturday. The boat collided with a 2011 Mastercraft X25 open bow boat traveling south on Lake Coeur d’Alene, near Threemile Point between Stevens Point and Swede Bay, according to Kootenai County Sheriff’s Office reports.
There were five adults on board the Mastercraft, all of whom were transported to Kootenai Health for non-life threatening injuries and released.
After a thorough search of the lake’s surface and surrounding shorelines Saturday night, Sunday and Monday morning, the Kootenai County Sheriff’s Office decided to focus the search on the bottom of the lake, reaching depths up to 120 feet in that area.
A sonar boat was dispatched to the crash site, where it scanned the lake bottom in an effort to identify any body-like shapes. Kootenai County Sheriff’s Recreation Safety Section Sgt. Will Klinkesus said the sonar scanning can only identify shapes and will be used. If a location is found, a dive team will be called.
“We’ll probably be out there most of the evening,” Klinkesus told The Press Monday. “We could go into the night.”
He asks that boaters in the area stay away. Any wake made by other boats can cause the sonar boat to move up and down, which disturbs the sonar resolution.
Caitlin Breeze, one of the people missing from the crash, attended Gonzaga University and was named to the President’s list Monday.
Another of the missing adults, Justin T. Honken of Post Falls, worked in rodeo and has spent a lot of his time in Wyoming, where he went to high school and part of college. According to his Facebook page, he studied criminal law at Northwest College in Powell, Wyo., and at Dixie State University in St. George, Utah. His family declined to comment Monday afternoon as the search continued.
If anyone has information about this incident, please contact the Sheriff’s Recreation Safety Section at (208) 446-2250.