UPDATE (6:50 p.m. PT) - Dive teams were working in Idaho's Coeur d'Alene Lake Monday after two small planes collided over the lake Sunday afternoon.
Authorities were in the process of recovering multiple victims, saying there were likely eight in all — six on one plane, and two on the other.
Among the six victims on the plane owned by Brooks Seaplane Service, which takes customers up for scenic views of Lake Coeur d'Alene, were members of a single family. Sean Frederickson and his children identified in news reports as Hayden, Sofie and Quinn have been identified as four of the six victims aboard one of the two planes involved in the mid-air crash.
Frederickson worked as a golf pro at the Oswego Lake Country Club, where he was acknowledged last year by the regional PGA, according to a statement provided to KGW by the club's general manager Bryan Fisher.
Statements of condolence have poured in Monday, from colleagues, friends and his wife April Upchurch.
The Lake Oswego School District sent out a statement Monday evening expressing their grief at the loss of two children who had attended local public schools. The statement, signed by Superintendent Lora de la Cruz, said Sofia Olsen was set to enter 11th grade at Lake Oswego High School and Quentin Olsen was heading into sixth grade this fall at Lake Grove Elementary.
"We are stunned and heartbroken, and share in the sorrow of our community," de la Cruz said in the statement.
Officials were still piecing together what occurred Sunday afternoon, based on interviews and photos taken at the scene.
“Some video image that we’ve seen and still pictures that we’ve seen, that were taken accidentally, show that they were coming toward each other, but I don’t know which one was flying south and which one was flying north,” said Lieutenant Ryan Higgins with the Kootenai County Sheriffs Office.
Higgins told reporters that responders reached two victims before the planes sank, but they had already died. Divers were working Monday to recover the bodies of the other victims from more than 120 feet of water, where the crashed planes splashed down.
Little was immediately revealed about the second plane, according to reporters briefed earlier Monday. Authorities said it was based in Lewiston, Idaho, but had flown out Felts Field in Spokane on Sunday.
A team from the National Transportation Safety Board from Seattle is due to arrive in Coeur d’Alene to begin the investigation possibly as soon as Monday night.
Doug Nadvornick of Spokane Public Radio contributed to this story.
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