RCMP divers join search for person believed caught in Westside Road landslide

Photo: COSAR

Underwater image of bottom of Okanagan Lake near Westside Road landslide, April 11, 2025.

UPDATE 3:32 p.m.

The RCMP underwater recovery team has completed searching the water near the Westside Road landslide for today.

RCMP divers have cleared the area from shore to approximately 30 metres out but haven't found anything of significance.

Search and rescue boats from Kelowna and Vernon will continue combing the area looking for more clues into the evening and they plan to be back on the water Saturday.

"COSAR's boat has found more debris. The plan right now is to be on scene tomorrow at 9 a.m. with ground teams, dog teams, drone teams and the boat," says COSAR search manager Ed Henczel.

Henczel says their estimates peg the landslide that hit Westside Road at 20,000 tons.

"That works out to about the size of a four-story building."

ORIGINAL 11:42 a.m.

Search and rescue crews are back on the water off Westside Road Friday morning looking for a missing person believed to have been caught in last week's landslide.

Volunteers with Central Okanagan Search and Rescue and Vernon Search and Rescue have been combing the water in front of the slide area looking for clues after receiving reliable information that a man is missing and may have been caught in the slide.

Search managers and RCMP have credible information that a man in a pickup truck was travelling on Westside Road at approximately 9 p.m., April 1, the night of the landslide.

"We don't know much about our missing person at this point in time. We just know that there is a strong possibility that somebody was caught in the slide," said Vernon Search and Rescue manager Coralie Nairn.

We of course, can't prove it until we find substantial evidence towards that. Especially the biggest evidence would be a vehicle."

Search teams have been using underwater video cameras to search for clues and a final resting spot for the pickup truck and driver.

Thursday's search turned up construction equipment in the debris field approximately 200 to 300 yards from shore. According to search and rescue co-ordinators, the find is enough for RCMP divers to take a closer look.

There are now two search boats combing the slide area looking for clues and the RCMP divers are expected to hit the water shortly.

While the slide came down on April 1, this is only the sixth day of searching by crews. They were initially called in to make sure there were no people caught in the slide after receiving reports of a homeless camp in the path of the slide.

Searchers found evidence of the camp, including caches of stolen goods and propane tanks. It was determined the tanks were connected to the homeless encampment which was unoccupied at the time of the slide and the file was closed.

Three days later, a missing persons file from Vernon was transferred to West Kelowna RCMP and the search was back on.

Despite the previously finds, searchers have very little to go on at this point and if the man was swept out of the vehicle his remains could be anywhere from the road to the middle of the lake, which is more than 200 metres deep.

The Ministry of Transportation continues to work to stabilize the road and the area around the slide. Westside Road is currently open to single-lane, alternating traffic.