Four people missing and several injured after boat collision in California

Ten people also were injured in the crash, one critically, the Mohave County Sheriff's Department said in a statement.

The crash happened Saturday on the Colorado River between Pirate Cove Resort & Marina in Needles, California and the Topock Marina in Topock, Arizona, north of Lake Havasu, officials said.

The sheriff's department said the boats -- one northbound and carrying 10 people and the other southbound and occupied by six people -- collided head on.

All those aboard both boats were thrown into the water and both boats sank, the sheriff's department said in its statement, adding that some people were rescued from the water by passing boaters.

Rescue crews arrived about 45 minutes after the first calls for help and found more than a dozen people injured and spread a few miles down the river, Eric Sherwin, a spokesman for the San Bernardino County Fire Department, said Saturday.

The fire department initially said two people were missing and "presumed submerged."

On Sunday, the sheriff's department said four people, all of whom were traveling on the northbound boat, are still missing. The San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department, Arizona DPS Air Rescue and Care Flight all deployed helicopters shortly after the initial call but were unable to locate any of the missing people, according to the Mohave County Sheriff's Department statement.

Nine people were transported to area hospitals by ambulance. A critically injured person, who had been rescued by a Good Samaritan's boat, was flown to a hospital in Las Vegas in critical condition.

The Mohave County and San Bernardino County sheriff's departments are conducting dive and search operations in the area of the crash, officials said.

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