Victims of crash are found
Remains of father and two children are recovered by officials.
The search for the Santa Clarita family of four whose vehicle plunged into a Northern California river more than a week ago has entered a new and tragic chapter.
Authorities discovered the family’s maroon Honda Pilot, which had veered off the 101 Freeway and plunged into the Eel River, near Leggett, the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office announced Monday. Inside the vehicle, which was recovered Sunday, were the bodies of 41-year-old Sandeep Thottapilly and his 9-year-old daughter, Saachi. Two days earlier, the body of 38-yearold Soumya Thottapilly was pulled from the river.
On Monday, the body of 12-year-old Siddhant Thottapilly was found submerged in the river about six miles north of the crash site.
The Valencia family had visited Portland, Ore., and was traveling to a friend’s home in San Jose on April 6, authorities said. Shortly after 1 p.m. that day, a Honda Pilot matching the description of the one the family was driving was reported to be submerged in the river.
The driver was pulling over to the side of the road amid heavy rain just before the vehicle went over the edge. The driver may have misjudged where the road ended, according to the California Highway Patrol. Authorities have said the stretch of highway that runs through the rural area gets windy and that the embankment is heavily forested and drops 50 to 100 feet down.
The woman’s body was found in the water by authorities searching the river by boat, Mendocino County Sheriff-Coroner Thomas Allman said. Authorities, who originally had said the body was a child’s, anticipate that an autopsy will be performed early next week.
The body was found seven miles away from the crash site — a fact that did not surprise Allman. “This river at the flood stage is unforgiving,” he said.
Hampered initially by heavy rainfall, search crews were unable to locate the vehicle, but did find automobile parts as well as personal items. Those items were positively identified by relatives as belonging to the Thottapilly family, authorities said.
Rescue workers searched for the vehicle and its occupants using CHP helicopters, boats equipped with sonar, kayaks, river boards, jet skis and dive teams, authorities said.
At about 11:30 a.m. Sunday, a boating team noticed the smell of gasoline coming from the water about onehalf mile north of the crash site, the Sheriff ’s Office said. Searchers located a vehicle about 4 to 6 feet underwater. When divers entered the water, they felt what they believed to be a person inside of the vehicle.
“Visibility was extremely poor,” a department news release said. “And divers noted the vehicle was encased in a large amount of sediment from the river current.” At about 6:30 p.m., the vehicle was partially removed from the Eel River by use of a tow truck. It was then that the two bodies were found.
The Eel River dumps into the Pacific Ocean, and search crews will continue to explore all the way to the river’s mouth if they have to, Allman said. Law enforcement resources have been stretched, Allman said, due to an investigation related to the Washington state Hart family of eight, whose vehicle plunged off a Mendocino County cliff into the Pacific Ocean surf last month.
CHP Capt. Bruce Carpenter said the two incidents, probably involving 12 fatalities, are “unprecedented for this county.”