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Vol. 15, Issue 4
Summer 2006

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Marine SAR

West coast ferry disaster demonstrates community spirit

by NSS Staff

When the M/V Queen of the North sank off the coast of British Columbia in the early morning of March 22, 2006, the small village of Hartley Bay First Nation was not caught off-guard, and the community response was remarkable.

The ferry struck rocks off Gil Island on the Prince Hardy to Prince Rupert route at 12:20am, according to the Transportation Safety Board. The Marine Communications and Traffic Services Prince Rupert which received the Mayday call sent a distress relay broadcast. The Joint Rescue Centre (JRCC) Victoria tasked the Canadian Forces Cormorant and Buffalo aircraft and numerous Canadian Coast Guard and Canadian Coast Guard Auxiliary vessels to respond.

The CCGS Sir Wilfred Laurier provided SAR response in the sinking of the Queen of the North last March. Based at the Canadian Coast Guard base in Victoria, it provides search and rescue services in addition to icebreaking, aids to navigation, fisheries enforcement, and other duties. The CH-149 Cormorant Helicopter, from Canadian Forces 442 Squadron, provided search capability, illuminating operations and medical evacuation of injured passengers and crew.
Photo courtesy of the crew of the Sir Wilfred Laurier.

Local residents responded to a distress call around 12:30am, and began transferring passengers and crew from lifeboats and life rafts into fishing vessels and small boats. The F/V Lone Star was among the first responders on scene, recovering 17 persons from survival craft and assisting in the search for others.

By 12:56am the ferry had been abandoned and contact was lost. The CCGS Sir Wilfred Laurier arrived on scene, having dispatched its fast rescue craft which arrived 10 minutes ahead of the vessel. Its proximity to the incident was a critical factor in the success of the SAR operation, along with the quick actions of local residents.

Everyone in the Hartley Bay community was involved in the rescue and on-shore care of the reported 99 people that came ashore; 11 of them were evacuated to Prince Rupert for medical attention. Two other passengers are believed to have drowned. The ferry had a potential 650-passenger capacity.

Role of EPIRBS

The 406 MHz Emergency Position-Indicating Radio Beacons (EPIRBs) carried on the Queen of the North were activated as the vessel sank, alerting the COSPAS-SARSAT system with an extremely accurate position. Although one beacon was removed from the water prematurely, the EPIRBs provided valuable information on the drifting effects of the water currents. The timely information that was relayed to the JRCC mission planning systems, via the constant stream of COSPAS-SARSAT reports, assisted the search.

“It was an amazing team effort,” said Major Chuck Grenkow, Officer in Charge of the Joint Rescue Co-ordination Centre in Victoria. “It was an excellent response, and not only from the dedicated search and rescue professionals who are on 24/7, but from the Hartley Bay First Nation community. They did everything they could – kudos to those folks.”

The rescue effort was hampered by the lack of accurate counts of persons on board the ferry. The SAR operation included a search of the nearby waters and shorelines to ensure that no one was missed, not knowing for certain if all persons had been accounted for. The search continued into daylight hours and ended on March 22 at 2:15pm.

The Transportation Safety Board responded immediately and sent a dive team to investigate the accident. The Board is now analyzing information from the ship’s navigation equipment and from interviews with passengers and crew.

 

Date Modified: 2004-01-05

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