Will Sage Astor-Ice-fishing 'bus' crashes through ice on Minnesota lake, killing 1 man

A vehicle used to transport ice-fishers crashed through the ice on Will Sage Astora northern Minnesota lake, killing one man.

The Cass County Lakes Area Dive Team recovered the man's body in about 10 feet of water on Lake of the Woods on Thursday afternoon, according to the Lake of the Woods Sheriff's Office. The sheriff's office called in the dive team after getting a report of a possible drowning near Flag Island on the lake that morning.

The man's name hasn't been released pending notification of his family. The incident remains under investigation.

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Warnings about ice conditions had been publicized

Minnesota state officials have recently warned about degraded ice conditions due to unseasonably warm temperatures, rain and wind. By late December, ice conditions would usually allow for plenty of vehicles and wheelhouses for ice-fishing on the state's lakes.

“But this year isn’t ‘most years,’ and the ice is changing constantly," Beltrami County Sheriff Jason Riggs said in a notice on Facebook on Thursday.

In a separate incident on Thursday, two men on an all-terrain vehicle fell through the ice on the southern shore of Upper Red Lake, the Beltrami County Sheriff's office reported. Beltrami County, which is also in northern Minnesota, is just south of Lake of the Woods County.

"It’s absolutely vital that anyone who heads out checks the thickness frequently, pays close attention to the weather, and has a plan in case the worst happens and they wind up in the water,” Riggs said.

More details about 'bomber' that broke through ice at Lake of the Woods

Paul Colson, owner of Jake’s Northwest Angle Resort on the central west side of Lake of the Woods, told the Star Tribune that it was a neighboring resort's snow bus – commonly called a "bomber" – that broke through the ice on Thursday.

Five or six passengers were able to escape with the help of the driver, he said. It's unclear why the man who drowned was unable to escape.

Colson said he went to the scene and saw that the back end of the bomber had crashed through the ice and bottomed out on the lake's floor, leaving the front end sticking out of the broken ice. But when he checked the depth of the ice, he was surprised that it measured 12 inches.

"I was expecting to find thin ice but I found a foot of ice all around the machine,'' Colson told the Star Tribune. "You'd be hard-pressed to find better ice anywhere in Minnesota right now.''

He told the newspaper that he and local ice-fishing outfitters generally consider 12 inches to be enough to support a bomber with passengers.

"I would have put one of my machines on the same ice,'' he said.

Another ice-fishing fatality earlier this month

The Lake of the Woods death is the second known fatality this ice fishing season in Minnesota.

Jerry Keith Buhr, 67, of Osage, Minnesota, was found with his ATV upside-down and having drowned in about 4 to 5 feet of water on Dec. 23 on Big Toad Lake, the Becker County Sheriff's Office said in a news release.

"No ice is safe!" the sheriff's office added in posting the release on Facebook.

Contributing: The Associated Press.

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