Drowning victim search continues for third day on Okanagan Lake

The search for a possible drowning victim in Okanagan Lake continued Sunday for the third day.

Friday evening around 5:30 p.m., Kelowna RCMP responded to a report that a man went into Okanagan Lake near McKinley Landing off a pontoon boat and never resurfaced.

Central Okanagan Search and Rescue (COSAR) searched throughout the evening Friday and returned Saturday for a nine-hour search.

Crews were back in the water Sunday to carry on with the search.

“We’re going through a different area. We divided the area into certain grids and we’re now searching some of the grids we did not get to (Saturday),” said Central Okanagan Search and Rescue manager, Duane Tresnich.

Tresnich says a recovery team should be coming to the Okanagan and they’re expecting another long day of searching.

“I’ll probably keep my team out there till about 5 o’clock, that’s going to be nine hours solid on the water. Then we’ll have a conversation with the RCMP on what our next step is.”

COSAR had RCMP assisting them Sunday in an effort to keep boaters away from the search efforts.

“It was starting to become a problem that we did have to request RCMP presence,” said Tresnich.

“Unfortunately, even though we have a flashing blue light, which is an emergency light on water, boaters seem to ignore that. We’re asking you, please, if you see the flashing blue light stay away from us we’re on an active search.”