3 dead – including two 4-year-old boys – after a 25-foot pontoon boat capsized on Lake Powell in northern Arizona

PAGE, Arizona – A woman and two children died and two others were hospitalized after a pontoon boat capsized on Lake Powell in northern Arizona, authorities said Sunday.

National Park Service officials said the privately owned 25-foot pontoon was being towed by another boater when it was overturned by waves near the mouth of Navajo Canyon in Glen Canyon National Recreation Area on Friday afternoon.

Lake Powell is located northeast of Page and near the Arizona-Utah border.

Rescue workers arrived at the scene and found some of the eleven passengers on the overturned pontoon and others trapped in the water and under the boat.

Glen Canyon rangers and Page Fire Department personnel are helping to remove the injured from the water and transfer them to ambulances and helicopters for transport to the hospital.

Authorities said Saturday that 72-year-old Melissa Bean and two 4-year-old boys died at the scene of the accident.

The names of the boys have not yet been released.

Authorities said two other pontoon passengers remained in the hospital on Sunday – a 12-year-old girl in critical condition and a man being treated for unspecified injuries.

It is unclear whether the victims are related, but authorities said families from Utah and Idaho were on the pontoon when it capsized.

The incident is being investigated by the county sheriff’s office, the National Park Service and the county coroner’s office.

“It is not unusual for us to investigate a fatality on the water on a regular basis throughout the year. However, the magnitude of this incident – we have three fatalities and two in critical condition – is not an everyday circumstance and is definitely tragic,” Lt. Adam Simonsen, a spokesman for the Coconino County Sheriff’s Office, said in a statement.