Air collision recovery will take time, KCSO says

Officials from the Kootenai County Sheriff’s Office said that recovering both the planes and the bodies of those who died in Sunday’s mid-air collision over Lake Coeur d’Alene requires an operation that will be neither quick nor easy.

“We’re going to be conducting some more recovery operations in the days and probably weeks ahead,” said Lt. Ryan Higgins of the Kootenai County Sheriff’s Office. “Our main focus right now is recovering the victims.”

At least eight people are believed to be dead after a charter plane carrying five passengers and a pilot from Brooks Seaplanes — the charter service with its station near City Beach, downtown Coeur d’Alene’s waterfront, collided with another aircraft carrying at least two occupants, including its pilot. Witnesses described a fireball in the sky before both planes crashed into the water around 2:20 p.m.

Three bodies have so far been recovered. It is believed no one survived. Authorities have not yet released the names of the dead or the presumed-dead. The Brooks aircraft was carrying the pilot, two adult passengers and three children. Higgins said the sheer nature of the crash and the 127-foot depth of the crash site will make recovery a long and arduous process.

“If we get (the victims) all up in a week, it would be a miracle,” Higgins said. “It’s a very large debris field. We’re talking about two planes scattered over a large area. It’s going to take time. (Divers) can only do so many dives per day at that depth.”

Higgins estimated about 20 people are on the scene as part of the recovery process. The crews includes four divers, five sonar team members and support staff. The recovery team is using a remote operated vehicle — or ROV — to explore the wreckage.

“The ROV,” Higgins described, “is about the size of a small cooler. It has grappling arm that can grab things that are small. That’s how we’ve pulled up the bodies so far.”

The aircrafts’ insurance companies will primarily deal with removing the debris once all the bodies have been pulled from the lake, Higgins said, adding that recovering the aircraft is secondary to giving families the ability to grieve for their loved ones.

“It’s a surreal scene at this point,” he said. “It’s something we’ve never come across. But the team’s hanging in there. Right now, our main focus is just recovering the bodies and giving families a way to find some closure.”