The lever needed to activate a safety mechanism in the coast guard vessel that capsized resulting in the death of two volunteers was missing, the Transportation Safety Board of Canada confirmed Thursday.
“The lever wasn’t there – there was a pair of pliers there – so we have to find out what happened to the lever – so it might have broken off,” said Raymond Mathew, manager for marine investigations.
Royal Canadian Marine Search and Rescue (RCMSR) volunteers Angie Nemeth, 43 and Beatrice Sorensen, 51, died Sunday during a training session on the Skookumchuck Narrows along the Sunshine Coast when their boat overturned, trapping them beneath it.
Earlier reports revealed the righting balloon in the vessel didn’t deploy.
Mathew previously described the balloon as a “buoyancy chamber that inflates and swings the boat back at an angle so that if people are trapped below it they are able to swim out.”
But the missing lever needed to be pulled in order to activate the balloon.
Get daily National news
According to a witness, who didn’t want his name used, safety crews tried to activate the righting balloon without the lever once it was winched out of the ocean.
“I saw them trying to operate it with a pair of vi-scripts when they brought the boat back – and it still wouldn’t work,” he said.
The safety board is trying to determine if the lever was missing before the crew took the boat out, or if it had broken off as a result of them trying to activate it when the boat capsized.
According to RCMSR president Randy Strandt, vessels are always inspected before taken out.
“They wouldn’t operate the boat without a safety feature,” he said. “They have safety inspections – daily inspections and monthly inspections as well,”
Strandt couldn’t confirm which inspection checks the lever for the righting balloon.
He has no knowledge of the levers ever falling off, though.
The boat – Zodiac 733 – is a trusted search and rescue vessel used across the country, said Strandt.
“Not only in our fleet, but in the coast guard fleet as well.”
Strandt wouldn’t comment further, as the RCMSR has yet to begin its internal investigation.
Mathew also couldn’t comment further as the Transportation and Safety Board’s investigation was put on hold while the community attended Nemeth and Sorensen’s funerals Thursday.
The two women were very involved and well-known in the Sechelt community. Sorensen worked as the director of finance for Sunshine Coast Community Services and Nemeth worked for the local radio station CKAY FM.
According to Mathew, the board may not resume interviewing witnesses until as late as Thursday of next week.
Comments