Boat Accident in Havasu Sat. night

**K-034** · 06-13-2017, 02:00 PM

Mohave County Sheriff’s deputies are continuing their search for the second victim of a fatal Saturday boating accident.

An unidentified female has been missing since an 8 p.m. boating accident on Saturday, when a watercraft capsized at high speed and ejected the woman and other passengers into Lake Havasu. One Redondo Beach, California man died as an apparent result of the accident, and Mohave County Sheriff’s Deputies feared the same fate of the woman as of Monday.

According to a sheriff’s department news release, Bruce Buchanan, 51, of Redondo Beach, California, died at Havasu Regional Medical Center following the accident.

The Sheriff’s Department has dispatched a 38-foot operations vessel and several perimeter vessels to search for the woman’s possible remains.

The search area encompasses a diameter of about one mile, according to Mohave County Sheriff’s Sgt. Kyler Cox. The department’s main operations vessel is using a towed side-scan sonar device to search the lake’s bottom for the woman. According to Cox, the device emits and receives soundwaves from the lake bottom, producing “general shapes” that can be interpreted as possible points of interest during the search.

The points of interest are marked on GPS and then investigated through the use of a submersible drone which is tethered to the operations vessel, and can be further investigated by divers if necessary.

“We’ve had this equipment for some time,” Cox said. “The imagery isn’t the best. We’ve marked a few targets, and discounted them. We try to avoid putting divers into the water unless they have a target to search.”

As of Monday, the department’s search encompassed an area of Lake Havasu north and south from Contact Point to Thompson Point, and from Body Beach to San Bernardino County. As the search and recovery operation continued Monday, perimeter vessels worked to keep other passing boaters at bay.

“When we’re taking sonar images, we try to keep other vessels outside of the perimeter,” Cox said. “When those boats create wakes, it ruins the imaging. If boaters have to cross (the search area), they should slow to a no-wake speed.”

Although Cox says fatal accidents such as this can happen several times each boating season, he remains confident that the woman will be found.

“The Sheriff’s Office has never failed to find someone,” Cox said. “Whether we use divers, or if people unfortunately encounter the remains themselves, they’ve always been found. We will continue to search until something is recovered.”

Five Mohave County Sheriff’s Deputies and numerous volunteers were engaged in the search as of Monday, Cox said.

Staff writer Chelsea Curtis contributed to this story.

Very sad news, I hate to read stuff like this, very sad how a fun day of boating can turn into tragedy, R.I.P