Columbia River claims two boaters

Bodies, boat still not found

Two Seattle men have presumably drowned in a boating accident on the Columbia River Sunday afternoon, and authorities have yet to recover their bodies.

The Multi-Agency Communications Center received an emergency 911 call at 1:14 p.m. Sunday that a boat was sinking on the Columbia River three miles north of Sunland Estates.

One man, 35-year-old Daniel Helgeson, North Bend, was thrown from the boat and suffered scrapes and bumps, but survived.

The owner of the drag boat, 32-year-old Chad Robert Doyle, and a second passenger, 34-year-old John Warren Bea, have not been found and are

presumed dead, Grant County Chief Deputy John Turley said.

The exact cause of the accident is still unknown, but Turley said he has

two theories. The 20-foot Riviera power boat, which was equipped with a

Chevrolet 454-cubic-inch engine with more than 500 horsepower, may have

exploded and sunk the boat.

The second possibility is that the boat was performing a "rooster tail"

(a speed maneuver designed to lift the boat from the water) and tipped

over, Turley said, quoting the survivor.

"They're going along and all of a sudden, boom, he's thrown from the boat," Turley said of Helgeson.

Helgeson was rescued by fellow boaters, according to a sheriff's office report.

Sheriff's deputies have narrowed the area where the boat sank to a

half-mile stretch of the river, where "hundreds" of boats were driving

through, Turley said. The depth of the water ranges from 24 feet to 91

feet, he said.

"We won't be able to fully understand the accident until we find the boat," he said.

The sheriff's office is unable to do a thorough search of the water without a side-scan sonar, which produces a wide picture of the river's bottom, Turley said. Neither the bodies nor the boat have been recovered.

The Idaho Mountain Search and Rescue owns one of those devices, and Turley said Grant County has been put on a list for a search. The Idaho group will charge the county only for expenses and not a fee for service, Turley said.

Grant County Search and Rescue responded to the accident for three to four hours, Turley said.

The families of the deceased have both been notified of the search

process, Turley said. None of the men were wearing life jackets.

The sheriff's office last used a side-scan sonar to search for the bodies

of Cliff Hansen and Lynn Anderson, who drowned in Moses Lake in January

2003. Those two bodies rose to the surface three months later when the

temperature of the water changed.

Sheriff's deputies responded to one other fatality accident over the Labor Day weekend. On Sunday, deputies responded to a four-wheeler accident on the 12000 block of Stratford Road.

A 10-year-old boy, Derek Dow, was riding the four-wheeler with his

father, Douglas Dow, both of Olympia, Wash. The two jumped a dirt mound when the vehicle went front end first into the ground. Derek Dow was thrown to the ground with serious head injuries.

He was airlifted to Central Washington Hospital in Wenatchee where he was

pronounced dead on arrival.