Large Ferry Sinks Off Canadian Coast

[cdnvic]

Passengers, crew safe after B.C. ferry sinks

Last Updated Wed, 22 Mar 2006 14:33:36 EST

CBC News

All 99 passengers and crew are safe Wednesday after the ferry they were travelling on sank in choppy waters off the northern coast of British Columbia.

The Queen of the North hit a rock shortly before 1 a.m. local time (4 a.m. ET) on Wednesday, about 135 kilometres south of Prince Rupert. The vessel reportedly began to tip to one side before it sank off Gil Island in Wright Sound.

The ship is now completely submerged, said the Search and Rescue Centre in Victoria.

B.C. Ferries president David Hahn confirmed to CBC Newsworld that all passengers are safe and sound. He wouldn't speculate on what caused the accident.

"I think something went catastrophically wrong," he said. "We'll have to dig through all the evidence. We don't want to draw any quick conclusions."

Rescue ships carried survivors to Hartley Bay, an isolated community of about 200 people south of Prince Rupert.

Many passengers were asleep when the incident occurred at 12:43 a.m. local time, about five hours into a 15-hour trip from Prince Rupert south to Port Hardy.

It took about an hour for the ferry to sink, giving passengers time to scramble into lifeboats in the rough waters, said coast guard Capt. Leah Byrne.

Fishing boats from nearby communities, a helicopter and several coast guard vessels responded to the distress call.

About 80 men from Hartley Bay, a village close to the accident site went out in their boats after someone picked up the ship's emergency call over the radio.

The 125-metre long ship, which can hold up to 700 people and 115 cars, is one of the larger ferries in the provincially-owned company's fleet.

Full Story

[lampard10]

Passengers, crew safe after B.C. ferry sinks

Last Updated Wed, 22 Mar 2006 14:33:36 EST

CBC News

All 99 passengers and crew are safe Wednesday after the ferry they were travelling on sank in choppy waters off the northern coast of British Columbia.

The Queen of the North hit a rock shortly before 1 a.m. local time (4 a.m. ET) on Wednesday, about 135 kilometres south of Prince Rupert. The vessel reportedly began to tip to one side before it sank off Gil Island in Wright Sound.

The ship is now completely submerged, said the Search and Rescue Centre in Victoria.

B.C. Ferries president David Hahn confirmed to CBC Newsworld that all passengers are safe and sound. He wouldn't speculate on what caused the accident.

"I think something went catastrophically wrong," he said. "We'll have to dig through all the evidence. We don't want to draw any quick conclusions."

Rescue ships carried survivors to Hartley Bay, an isolated community of about 200 people south of Prince Rupert.

Many passengers were asleep when the incident occurred at 12:43 a.m. local time, about five hours into a 15-hour trip from Prince Rupert south to Port Hardy.

It took about an hour for the ferry to sink, giving passengers time to scramble into lifeboats in the rough waters, said coast guard Capt. Leah Byrne.

Fishing boats from nearby communities, a helicopter and several coast guard vessels responded to the distress call.

About 80 men from Hartley Bay, a village close to the accident site went out in their boats after someone picked up the ship's emergency call over the radio.

The 125-metre long ship, which can hold up to 700 people and 115 cars, is one of the larger ferries in the provincially-owned company's fleet.

Full Story

I take it one of the rescued was a Thai, to allow it on here.

[cdnvic]

Passengers, crew safe after B.C. ferry sinks

Last Updated Wed, 22 Mar 2006 14:33:36 EST

CBC News

All 99 passengers and crew are safe Wednesday after the ferry they were travelling on sank in choppy waters off the northern coast of British Columbia.

The Queen of the North hit a rock shortly before 1 a.m. local time (4 a.m. ET) on Wednesday, about 135 kilometres south of Prince Rupert. The vessel reportedly began to tip to one side before it sank off Gil Island in Wright Sound.

The ship is now completely submerged, said the Search and Rescue Centre in Victoria.

B.C. Ferries president David Hahn confirmed to CBC Newsworld that all passengers are safe and sound. He wouldn't speculate on what caused the accident.

"I think something went catastrophically wrong," he said. "We'll have to dig through all the evidence. We don't want to draw any quick conclusions."

Rescue ships carried survivors to Hartley Bay, an isolated community of about 200 people south of Prince Rupert.

Many passengers were asleep when the incident occurred at 12:43 a.m. local time, about five hours into a 15-hour trip from Prince Rupert south to Port Hardy.

It took about an hour for the ferry to sink, giving passengers time to scramble into lifeboats in the rough waters, said coast guard Capt. Leah Byrne.

Fishing boats from nearby communities, a helicopter and several coast guard vessels responded to the distress call.

About 80 men from Hartley Bay, a village close to the accident site went out in their boats after someone picked up the ship's emergency call over the radio.

The 125-metre long ship, which can hold up to 700 people and 115 cars, is one of the larger ferries in the provincially-owned company's fleet.

Full Story

I take it one of the rescued was a Thai, to allow it on here.

We cover world travel here. I was just shocked when I heard about it this morning. Thought its a good reminder it can happen anywhere. Most often when you hear of ferries going down its in Asia or Africa.

cv

[lampard10]

[i take it one of the rescued was a Thai, to allow it on here.

We cover world travel here. I was just shocked when I heard about it this morning. Thought its a good reminder it can happen anywhere. Most often when you hear of ferries going down its in Asia or Africa.

cv

It's alright....only joking. Just thinking back to when you stopped my Cyprus plane crash story as not being Thailand related.

[cdnvic]

[i take it one of the rescued was a Thai, to allow it on here.

We cover world travel here. I was just shocked when I heard about it this morning. Thought its a good reminder it can happen anywhere. Most often when you hear of ferries going down its in Asia or Africa.

cv

It's alright....only joking. Just thinking back to when you stopped my Cyprus plane crash story as not being Thailand related.

I was also the one who put it back after pushing for an amendment to the rules

cv

[Miaow]

I'm surprised but glad no one died, specially they were almost all asleep at 1:00 am and one hour is not a lot of time but apparently enough to get everyone safe ..

Cheers to the BC Ferry crew to be well prepared and organised for such tragedies...

[timber]

Yes it is a bit shocking, The B.C. ferry system has a good safety record and they have a lot of ships in some pretty roughed area. Very unusual form them to have problems let along a sinking.

Published: Wednesday, March 22, 2006

PRINCE RUPERT, B.C. -- Grateful survivors of today's ferry sinking off the Queen Charlotte Islands are telling graphic stories of their ill-fated journey. Passenger Lawrence Papineau, one of the 100 people who took to lifeboats in choppy seas, says it was like a scene out of the Titanic.

He says passengers heard a crashing noise, then the 125-metre ship tilted to one side. Within an hour, Papineau says the vessel tilted again and levelled out before it "sank down to the sixth deck, came up like the Titanic, dipped and then it went under."

The orderly rescue of dozens of people from the ferry's lifeboats -- 42 crew members and 59 passengers -- and the fact that no one was seriously injured is nothing short of miraculous, said the president of B.C. Ferries.

"Anytime you have a major incident and you have no one hurt or killed in this type of thing, I think you always think it's a miracle," David Hahn said. "You always think, thank God, and you (are) thankful for the crew. That's what they're trained to do. They've done their job once again."

The Queen of the North, sailing south on a 450-kilometre overnight trip from Prince Rupert to Port Hardy along what's known as B.C.'s Inside Passage, hit the rock in choppy seas and high winds. It took about an hour for the boat to sink, allowing those aboard the ferry to get on the lifeboats and giving rescuers time to reach them.

The Sir Wilfrid Laurier, which was in the area and on the scene by 2:10 a.m., and a fishing boat from Hartley Bay, the Lone Star, were instrumental in the rescue.

The Lone Star, in fact, "played a very valuable role" by pulling passengers from the life rafts and taking them to the Hartley Bay community centre, Canadian Coast Guard spokesman Dan Bate said. Other residents of Hartley Bay took speedboats out to the site of the incident to help rescue passengers.

Local community offers comfort

Most of those rescued from the lifeboats were taken to a community centre in Hartley Bay where the town's residents brought them blankets and coffee; the others were still aboard the Sir Wilfrid Laurier. They were all to be taken to Prince Rupert later Wednesday.

Some of the passengers were in their nightclothes when rescued. The ferry left Prince Rupert at 8 p.m. PST Tuesday and wasn't due to arrive in Port Hardy until noon Wednesday.

The 125-metre-long vessel was completely submerged about 135 kilometres from Prince Rupert after hitting the rock, listing to one side and then sinking.

"It's unfortunate to lose the ship, but if that's the cost of having nobody really hurt or killed, then fine, I think we'll live with that," Hahn said.

Hahn and B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell were headed to Prince Rupert to meet with those rescued from the ferry. An eight-member team from the Transportation Safety Board was also due in the area later in the day.

Nicole Robinson, a receptionist at the nursing station in Hartley Bay, said she talked to several members of the ferry's crew who were sleeping when the ship began to take on water.

"They heard a loud bang like it grinded a bit and they said the cabin started filling with water," she said.

Some people were hurt, but not seriously, said Robinson. Many were "stunned."

"We've just had a few patients come and go, minor injuries. The community all got together with blankets; everybody's pretty cold but they're all down at a community hall," Robinson said.

[tutsiwarrior]

I took one of those ferries in 1974 from Ketchikan to Rupert (maybe a US ferry?) in the dead of night and it seemed to glide down the straight with confidence. As this is busy ferry service I'm surprised that 'a rock' suddenly appeared in the lane.

Anyway the B.C. rescue services are to be commended. On the BBC it was reported that the local native fishermen from Hartley Bay immediately scrambled when the news came through on the radio and were instrumental to the rescue operation.

god love 'em...(in a previous life I was known as 'Ketchikan tutsi'...famous drunkard and high lead rigging crew component extraordinaire)

[cdnvic]

Looks like there may have been victims after all

Mini-sub to survey sunken B.C. ferry

Last Updated Fri, 24 Mar 2006 14:09:16 EST

CBC News

An unmanned mini-submarine will tour the wreck of the Queen of the North as the search continues for two people who have been missing since the ferry sank.

David Hahn, the CEO of BC Ferries, told the Vancouver Sun it could take up to a week for the diving vessel to look over the ferry, which capsized early Wednesday after veering off course and hitting a rock.

The Queen of the North was travelling south from Prince Rupert, B.C., when it hit a rock early Wednesday morning. (Photo courtesy BC Ferries)

Shirley Rosette and Gerald Foisey, a couple from 100 Mile House in the B.C. interior, are feared to have died in the accident.

"There is a real possibility that they went down with the ship," Hahn said.

Family members say the couple boarded the doomed ferry in Prince Rupert on Tuesday night, and have not been heard from since.

Officials are still investigating claims that the missing couple may have made their own way to back to Prince Rupert.

Mark Stefanson, a spokesman for BC Ferries, said a number of passengers reported seeing Rosette and Foisey talking to people in Hartley Bay, where the Queen of the North's passengers were taken after it sank.

The ferry company confirmed that the couple had been on the ship, but said they were not among the 99 people who were accounted for after the ferry went down.

Stefanson said the RCMP are trying to determine whether the two got a ride from a fisherman to Prince Rupert or decided to stay in Hartley Bay.

"We're trying to pin down where they are," he said.

The search continued as investigators tried to determine why the ship was so far off course when it hit a rock.

B.C. Transportation Minister Kevin Falcon noted Friday that the Queen of the North recently installed an autopilot system so new it was only certified by Transport Canada on March 2.

"There is a [global positioning system], an automatic pilot, three radars [and] electronic charting. There was enough electronic information there that one would think this shouldn't happen," Hahn said.

"The issue with this ship in this particular incident had very little to do with anything other than she was going somewhere around 19 knots and ran aground, ran into an island," he added.

"I don't care whether that was a new ship or an old ship, you don't [crash] a ship at that size at 19 knots and not just tear it apart."

The Queen of the North was about 135 kilometres south of Prince Rupert when it sank.

Environmental fears

Meanwhile, the sunken ferry is leaking fuel and environmental concerns are growing about the spill.

The Queen of the North had an estimated 220,000 litres of diesel fuel on board. It was also carrying 23,000 litres of lubrication oil.

Officials say the leak has spread over a large area. It is being contained with booms, and winds have helped keep it from reaching the shore.

Hahn said the ship is believed to have settled at a depth of about 425 metres.