Canada’s Transportation Safety Board on Wednesday will release the results of its investigation into a helicopter crash off Newfoundland that killed 17 people.
Cougar Helicopters flight 491 went down in the North Atlantic while shuttling workers from St. John’s to the Hibernia and Sea Rose offshore oil rigs on March 12, 2009. Only 28-year-old Robert Decker survived.
The safety authority will release the report in St. John’s at 12:30 ET, a month ahead of the tragedy’s second anniversary.
Family members of those who died have been waiting eagerly for this report in the hope it will shed light into the tragedy.
"But at the end of the day, we want to see something come from this report that allows us not only to know what went wrong, but why it went wrong," Harold Mullowney, who’s brother Derrick died in the crash, told Postmedia News recently.
A preliminary report issued by the TSB in June 2009 had identified "fatigue cracking" of studs in the chopper’s main gearbox – and a resulting oil leak – as the apparent cause of the crash.
The victims’ families struck a compensation deal last year with Sikorsky, the helicopter’s manufacturer, that saw about $2 million disbursed to 16 children of those who died, with amounts ranging from $100,000 for the oldest to $400,000 for the youngest left behind.
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