The bodies thought to be those of a woman and two children who had vanished last week in Loudoun County were found Monday. They were in their car which plunged into a stream in what officials said appeared to be a tragic accident. (iStock/iStock)

A car belonging to a missing Virginia woman was found partly submerged in a creek in Loudoun County on Monday afternoon, and the three people found dead in it appeared to be the woman and the two children for whom authorities had been searching.

Officials said they saw no indication of foul play and thought the three deaths stemmed from what Loudoun County Sheriff Mike Chapman described as “a tragic accident.”

The bodies found in the car were thought to be those of Courtney Ashe, 27, of Suffolk, Va.; her son, Cameron A. Martin, 5; and her cousin, Jaylen C. Sills-Russell, 9, said Kraig Troxell, spokesman for the sheriff’s office.

They had last been seen in the Ashburn area late Friday, when they set out to drive to Leesburg.

A search for them began, and the car was found in Sycolin Creek off Evergreen Mills Road and near Hogeland Mill Road in the Leesburg area, the sheriff’s office said.

Ashe and Jaylen had gone from the house of the woman’s uncle in Leesburg to another relative’s home in Ashburn to pick up the younger boy.

They left about 11 or 11:30 p.m. and were to return to Leesburg, Chapman said.

But they never arrived, and authorities were notified a little before noon the next day.

It remained unclear late Monday just what had happened to the car, a 2002 Taurus, and its three occupants, who apparently were traveling in the darkness through what may have been heavy rain.

Torrents of rain fell in much of the Washington region Friday and Saturday morning — with three to seven inches being reported.

The winding two-lane road on which the three were driving is “not a great road to navigate in normal conditions,” Chapman said.

He told a news conference near the scene that it was a “notoriously tough road when it comes to weather conditions.”

Indications were that the vehicle may have been driving in bad weather, crossed the center line of the road and struck a guardrail, officials said.

It appeared that it went over the rail and down an embankment into the water.

At some point, it flipped and was half-submerged when discovered about 5 p.m. Monday. Chapman said foliage made it more difficult to see.

He said that family members came from New Jersey after Ashe was reported missing, and that it was one of them who apparently spotted the vehicle Monday afternoon and notified authorities.

The vehicle was perhaps 25 yards from the road, he said.

When first seen Monday, it was about half underwater, and the creek may have been deeper during the weekend’s rain and in its immediate aftermath, the sheriff said.

In the vehicle, Chapman said, “we found a woman and two children we believe are the people we are looking for.”

It appeared, he said, to be “a tragic end to a tragic scenario.”

The matter, he said, remained under investigation.

Formal identifications of the three had yet to be made, and an effort will be made to determine what happened to the ­vehicle and just why it ended up in the creek.