The marine rescue sub-centre story is one of those things that typifies politics in Newfoundland and Labrador.
It’s entirely the creation of a few politicians with their own agenda and a whole bunch of other sincere, well-meaning people have gotten sucked into what is – essentially - a complete pile of shite.
In the wake of the tragic death last week of Joseph Riche, it shouldn’t be surprising that some people, including some politicians, are blaming the tragedy on the Department of National Defence.
That’s what politicians do in this province. Blame Ottawa is a time-honoured political strategy even if it is usually a political lie.
As with the Burton Winters tragedy, these provincial politicians are aiming public concern in the wrong direction.
According to information supplied to the news media – and widely reported already – the helicopter from 444 Squadron used for a training flight than ended with a bit of fishing for the crew six weeks ago was available for search and rescue missions.
And if that re-tasking wouldn’t have been enough, the squadron had another aircraft on stand-by anyway to meet any call for civilian search and rescue service, which, by the way, is not the squadron’s primary job.
None of that stopped CBC from turning a photo of the trip into a scandal. But to complain about that though would be to complain about dogs barking: that’s the shit they do especially when it comes to a potential ratings driver like a controversy spun entirely out of the imaginations of people in a newsroom.
Most of the people who have been talking about search and rescue the past couple of years – especially the politicians – know absolutely nothing about the subject at all.
Steve Reid is a retired helicopter pilot and was recently the commanding officer of 103 Squadron in Gander. He knows what it means to risk his life for others. He’s also got a letter in the Gander Beacon.
On the time to launch, a favourite one of a couple of the local political ghouls:
A 30-minute (daytime)/two-hour (off hours) posture provides unfair representation of the actual reaction times that SAR crews routinely achieve. For 103 Squadron, a typical response from the flight line averages 19 minutes or less, while a quiet hour response usually takes just under an hour.
On the constant comparison with fire departments:
It would be great if all it took to launch a SAR aircraft was to turn a key to start an engine and then race down a highway, but this is not the case. There are important factors to consider each time, such as en route weather conditions, air traffic control obligations and other specific mission requirements
He also talks about the growing mission for SAR since the 1940s and with it, the growing expectations:
And with this evolution, there are new pressures to contend with, such as an implied obligation for 103 Squadron helicopters to remain postured on the island in support of offshore activities, not to mention the long-standing support that the RCAF has provided to Newfoundland and Labrador for cases that fall under provincial jurisdiction. These include support to ground SAR cases, which encompass all other forms of distress that are not automatically classified as aeronautical or maritime distress as well as humanitarian efforts such as hospital-to-hospital patient transfers. Recognizing that Newfoundland and Labrador has unique geographic, meteorological and accessibility challenges, the number of cases for which the RCAF provides supplemental support outside of its federal mandate far exceeds all other provinces. Most have dedicated resources assigned o meet their specific provincial obligations.
Read the whole letter. It brings a reward you cannot get from anywhere else.
- srbp-
Search and rescue on the east coast of Canada is one of those cases where you can complain that all three political parties - provincial and federal - are guilty of playing slimy political games and you’d be right.
The latest move is the return of a CH-146 Griffon helicopter to 444 Squadron in Goose Bay, Labrador.
Yes, you read that correctly.
The return.
Trip 4 used to have three helicopters. In order to send some helicopters to Afghanistan, the Royal Canadian Air Force took one from here and one from there. One came from Goose Bay.
And now that the Afghan deployment is over, Trip 4 is getting its helo back.
Any connection between the two events is entirely coincidental. Well, except when politicians tie the two together in a way that is as disingenuous as other political and media comments on the search and rescue issue..
Defence minister Peter Mackay tied the two issues together:
"This helicopter represents another resource that can contribute to Canada's Search and Rescue system in support of primary responders in this region."
That quote is from CBC.
And intergovernmental affairs minister Peter Penashue said much the same thing:
“That will bring the number of helicopters from two to three and that will give full services to 5 Wing Goose Bay for their needs, as well for any request for ground search and rescue," he told reporters in St. John's.
The rest of the CBC story carried on with the same omissions and distortions used by the Fifth Estate in an earlier story they broadcast.
- srbp -
In the past month, at least two people have died as a result of misadventure in the wilderness on motorized vehicles.
One was was a 23 year old young man who inadvertently rode his all terrain vehicle into the water, where he drowned.
The other was a 14 year old young man whose snowmobile ran out of gas outside his hometown on the Labrador coast. He turned the wrong way to walk home and wound up, tragically, freezing to death. Had he turned the right way, he walked far enough to be home twice over.
In both cases, the local police directed the search with the help from volunteers and from the provincial emergency response organization. The emergency response agency called in helicopters from a civilian contractor to give the searchers the ability to cover more ground. That’s what they do to help the people searching on the ground.
Here’s what you will find on the Fire and Emergency Services website:
Fire and Emergency Services – NL is called upon to assist the police forces (Royal Newfoundland Constabulary & Royal Canadian Mounted Police) in search and rescue activities. This assistance is usually in the form of air services support for lost and missing persons. The program is also utilized by FES-NL during emergency response activities.
Sometimes they call for help from the military search and rescue service. But just so everyone is clear on who is responsible for what when it comes to search and rescue, here’s the mission as described on the website for the office that co-ordinates the military rescue service:
The Joint Rescue Coordination Centre (JRCC) Halifax is responsible for the coordination of all Search and Rescue (SAR) operations associated with aircraft and marine emergencies in eastern Canada.
All this is important because CBC’s Fifth Estate decided to ignore those and a great many other factual details in its ghoulish rush to grab some ratings. They spent most of their recent report reciting aspects of the story that are well known. The weather issue was one everyone asked about early on and that National Defence addressed in detail.
They interviewed the president of Universal Helicopters. When his company got the call from provincial officials, they were already committed to going he says, or words to that effect. He did not add and CBC certainly didn’t bother to explain that Universal has the contract to fly those search missions for provincial authorities.
And if Universal doesn’t anyone trained to provide much in the way of emergency medical support on those flights, that is because the provincial government hasn’t put it in the contract. They don’t have any infra-red equipment either, for the same reason. But, no need to worry, the provincial government is taking care of that.
New information about problems with the Hercules aircraft fleet in Greenwood actually explains in much clearer terms why the joint rescue centre didn’t send a helicopter from Gander. To do so, at a time when the weather was iffy, might have risked preventing them from responding to a marine emergency. After all that is the first responsibility for military search and rescue. As much as fifth estate tries to spin the story otherwise, the people who did the searching in Makkovik were the people who were supposed to be searching.
But for all that, the Fifth Estate story was good enough to get some politicians to ask questions in the legislature.
The CBC supper hour news led into the coverage of the House of Assembly session on Monday by noting that CBC’s reporting was one of the major topics of discussion. Their online story tells us all that the Premier is demanding answers “to questions raised about the search for Burton Winters by The Fifth Estate.” If you think pushing turkeys at Christmas is unseemly for a news organization, imagine what you’d think of such public masturbation.
In any event, opposition politicians asked the provincial government what they would do about the federal government. And, as CBC reported, Premier Kathy Dunderdale was happy to stand up in the House of Assembly and insist that she was as fried as everyone else that those nasty federales weren’t answering questions. Dunderdale did her best to out-posture Liberal Yvonne Jones about whose indignation was more righteous but in the end they both wound up in a tie.
They should both be ashamed of themselves, all the ghoul-politicians who have feasted on this tragedy, should be ashamed of themselves. The problem is that politicians from this province seem to have had the organ that controls decent, human behaviour surgically removed. No search and rescue crew could find it.
Otherwise, they’d have long ago stopped torturing the Winters family or figured out they they keep looking to the wrong people to provide answers to any questions they still have.
Incidentally, Jordan Wells is the other young man who died in a tragic accident earlier this year.
No politicians seem to care about Jordan’s family, though. No one has asked any questions in the legislature about Jordan. No one seems to wonder why he died, how he died and why the police and local volunteers searched for him. There’s not much chance a national television crew will show up to record his parents’ exquisite grief so that people in Sri Lanka can watch them bathe themselves with shards of broken glass over and over and over
There is apparently a difference between tragic deaths that only certain types of politicians and reporters can see.
It might be better to be blind.
- srbp -
Related:
A couple of years ago, in the aftermath of Cougar 491, SRBP made some suggestions about how to improve search and rescue services on the east coast of Canada.
The recent tragedy in Makkovik had nothing to do with the Canadian Forces search and rescue service. There’s been a huge public outcry aimed at Ottawa, egged on by politicians from all political parties who have misled people. The Premier and the municipal affairs minister are just two of those politicians, even though they know or ought to know the rights of who was responsible for what.
The fact is that the ground search and rescue in Makkovik was all provincial.
Some of the ideas from that older post still apply, even if they likely wouldn;t have made a difference in Makkovik. If a major disaster occurred – like say an airliner crash – all the SAR and emergency response would have to come from the south, by air. It’s a long way from Greenwood, Nova Scotia to Goose Bay and longer yet again to get up around Nain.
Some of those suggestions for improvements in the federal side still stand. But what about the province? Well, that’s where the people responsible could do a lot more than they have been. The ground search and rescue system actually works quite well, despite the neglect or under-funding. It largely works because of the huge number of volunteers, not because of the great attention paid to it by the political types. Sure they are the first ones to claim credit but they are usually the last ones to do anything beneficial.
So for starters let’s change that. If Kathy Dunderdale really wants to do something in response to the tragedy in Makkovik, then here are some simple ideas. She should clean up her own act before she points fingers at anyone else.
Here’s the SRBP list for starters:
- srbp -
Ground search and rescue is a police responsibility.
Police forces in Newfoundland and Labrador report to the provincial justice minister.
According to the Fire and Emergency Services website:
Emergency Air Services Program
Fire and Emergency Services – NL is called upon to assist the police forces (Royal Newfoundland Constabulary & Royal Canadian Mounted Police) in search and rescue activities. This assistance is usually in the form of air services support for lost and missing persons. The program is also utilized by FES-NL during emergency response activities.
So:
- srbp -
The premier whose government was responsible for directing the search effort for a young boy in Makkovik is now calling for an investigation into the actions of the people who weren’t responsible for the search.
From CBC:
Newfoundland and Labrador's premier is calling for a review of the military's role in the search for a 14-year-old boy who was found dead off the coast of Labrador last week.
“There are a number of questions that I don’t believe we have had satisfactory answers to. The family needs them, the community needs them and the people of this province need them," Kathy Dunderdale told the CBC News show On Point about the search for Burton Winters.
But as DND’s internal report makes plain in the third paragraph:
…the local RCMP in Makkovik has the mandate to lead all GSAR [ground search and rescue] efforts within its jurisdiction, including the decision to request CF assistance.
The RCMP are under contract to the provincial government and report to the province’s justice minister.
Despite that report – posted to the CBC’s website - Dunderdale claims there are outstanding questions about the military role in the search.
Evidently neither she nor her officials watched the video of the DND news conference from February 8 either. CBC posted it the same day. It covers the whole thing and addresses all the questions Dunderdale claims haven’t been answered.
- srbp -
“How satisfied are you with what they [DND officials] had to say?”
And with those words, CBC Here and Now’s Jonathan Crowe asked the man whose officials were responsible for directing the search for a missing 14 year old boy in Makkovik last week what he thought of explanations offered by people who weren’t directly responsible for the search efforts.
Municipal affairs minister Kevin O’Brien took the opportunity in his reply to obfuscate, to hide provincial responsibility for directing the search either through Fire and Emergency Services or through the police. His officials were just responding to requests from the police, in this case the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
The uninformed – and there are plenty of those out there – might assume that because the RCMP are a federal police force, therefore this was a federal option. The provincial officials were just helping out as good citizens. That’s not the case at all: the police work for the province, but O’Brien was apparently quite content to slough this off on the feds, even if implicitly.
A federal failure is an implicit theme local media reports have taken up and O’Brien went right along with it. He talked about the need for clarity, by implication from the Canadian Forces, on timelines and why they made key decisions.
Over the past couple of days, other politicians have taken up the same sorts of commentary. For his part, Crowe, was just running with the same tunnel vision that has gripped some local media in covering the story of a search that ended in tragedy with the discovery of the young boy’s body.
There’s nothing new in any of that. The politicians and the media have tried to pin responsibility for other tragedies – like Cougar 491 – on the air force search and rescue teams as well. Then, as now, though, the effort to find a scapegoat for a tragedy is powerful and wrong.
National defence officials didn’t help themselves on Wednesday. In a joint news conference with the acting commander of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police’s B Division, Rear Admiral David Gardam talked about the military role in the mission. Gardam and his senior air staff officer talked about when things happened and why the military did certain things. You’ll find the raw video in this CBC story.
But while Gardam may have understood where he fit into the scheme of things, you could tell by their questions, reporters didn’t. As a result, they never really figured out who was really supposed to answering questions about how the search went and why things happened.
Gardam also appeared tense and uncomfortable. At the end of the newser, as if it wasn’t already bad enough, Gardam interrupted the air staff officer who was answering a simple question simply. Gardam then took responsibility for deciding to use CH-146 Griffons, instead of CH-149 Cormorants, as if that made a fundamental difference.
Gardam may have thought he sounded leader-like with his abrupt “I’ll answer that” interjection. He was wrong. His reference to moving air assets around to meet the mission may work in the mess, but the talk of what he does during lobster season – in Nova Scotia – came off as a load useless macho posturing. The mainland reference and his complete inability to pronounce the name of the community grated on ears and confirmed for local audiences that the feds are out of touch with anything in this province.
The real answer was not that Gardam’s balls were big enough to make the tough decisions. It was that the 444 Squadron aircraft were closer to the scene and had the capability (apparently including forward-looking infrared) to get the job done. By cutting off the questions and walking out, Gardam just made a bad situation that much worse.
As a result of the DND newser, the Department of National Defence wound up taking it on the chin for something that they didn’t do. Gardam didn’t cut off the story. He guaranteed the anti-DND turn the story has taken will have legs and the controversy will grow.
His political masters will be still be dogged out by the likes of Jack Harris and Ryan Cleary. Since Gardam took responsibility for aircraft movements, someone will soon wonder why he thought it a good use of Cormorants to heli-lift the defence minister out of a fishing camp but that a search for a 14 year old boy would compromise his primary mission.
No one should be surprised if Gardam’s Career Indicator Light blew out in the gust of wind as he left the room.
Most of that is Gardam’s fault, not because he’s the boss but because he just screwed up so badly. What isn’t Gardam’s fault belongs to the idiot who thought it was a good idea to use people to talk to the media who didn’t actually direct the operation. The old axiom for military public affairs stills works: the closer to the pointy end, the better. The people who do the job know best at every level. Everyone else is a know-nothing REMF, and it usually shows in embarrassing ways.
For all the political posturing by the ghouls and for all the media tunnel vision on this, nothing will change the simple tragedy that is at the centre of this: A young boy died cold and alone. He died not because of anything anyone did or failed to do but because sometimes really bad things happen no matter what you do.
The family will grieve. Time will help them move on but they will never get over their loss.
For the police, volunteer searchers, provincial officials, sailors, air crew and all the others who tried desperately to find young Burton Winters, they know they tried and that sometimes this is what happens despite all the good efforts. That may be true but it won’t help them sleep at night.
As for the ghouls and the REMFS and the other shitbirds?
All the rest of us can do is just carry on. There is nothing you can do about them anyway. They hold no real responsibility and they deserve no better response.
- srbp -
Tory boss Kathy Dunderdale and Grit boss Kevin Aylward both think that the provincial government should investigate search and rescue response times around the province and then push Ottawa to spend more.
Classic provincial politician’s political play: go on a crusade to get the feds to pay.
It’s also a classic for the party leaders in this provincial election campaign to agree on the need to spend provincial cash on federal stuff.
You may recall that Kathy Dunderdale was the first one to pledge to spend provincial tax dollars to keep a co-ordination centre running so that former Tory candidate Merv Wiseman and his colleagues could work in Sin Jawns some more.
Now that Merv is a provincial Liberal candidate, the Liberals think that’s the way to go as well.
- srbp -
Danny Williams’ legacy in Newfoundland and Labrador will be one thing: the politics of panic. The old drama queen was always in a panic over something or other that was the gravest threat to something or other since the time of the last great upset to end all tirades.
Just like their role-model who seemed to spend almost every second of his seven years in office pissed-off, ticked-off or just plain old angry, the gaggle of politicians who came to office around him can’t function without something bunching their undies in the cracks of their arses.
His chosen successor, Kathy Dunderdale, is due the title of Chief Knicker Knotter. Evidently running the Telly 10 caused the spandex to ride up Premier Kathy Dunderdale. She could not wait to catch her breath after the race to let the world know that privatizing search and rescue service is just “not on.”
As the Telegram reported, Dunderdale told reporters that:
“As soon as I heard the speculation Ottawa might be considering that, we contacted the Prime Minister’s Office immediately and said again to them the health and safety is the number one priority in this province. It’s an issue to which we’re highly sensitive, we’re still very, very upset over the Marine Sub-Centre, and we’re not letting that go. So please do not exacerbate this any further. And, before you have any consideration at all about changing the way you do this business, you come to Newfoundland and Labrador and you talk to the government of Newfoundland and Labrador and you talk to the people involved in this industry before you take any moves whatsoever.”
Leaping is not confined to one particular political stripe.
Liberal member of parliament Scott Simms spent a bunch of time late last week telling any reporter who would listen that any move to privatize search and rescue would mean the death of gander and the squadron there.
Not to be outdone, Bloc NDP defence critic Jack Harris said that search and rescue is a core defence function. He would defend the virtue of the sainted men and women of the Canadian Forces. Too bad that Harris spent time after the Cougar 491 tragedy trying to pin responsibility for the deaths on 103 Squadron in Gander. “Off-station” they were, according to Harris even though that – even at the time – completely false.
And when most people caught onto his initial bullshite, Harris shifted to another bunch of foolishness about response times.
By now, savvy readers picked up the key word in Dunderdale’s warning.
Go back and read it again if you need to.
Right there at the beginning.
“Speculation.”
Yes.
Speculation.
You see, this all started from a story about the federal government’s ongoing struggle to find a replacement for the 40 year old Buffalo aircraft that fly in western Canada long after they should have been retired. In that context, National Defence wants to discuss all options, including contracting out instead of purchasing and operating the aircraft themselves:
The Conservative plan to purchase new fixed-wing search-and-rescue planes has been stalled for years. The government is now trying to kick-start the program, which is estimated to cost $3 billion.
On Wednesday, the government informed companies that it would hold consultations on the project.
The session will include discussion on potential procurement approaches for a fixed-wing search-and-rescue project, including Alternate Service Delivery options, the government noted in its message to companies.
All we have is speculation.
Supposition.
Imagination.
There’s nothing concrete.
And yes politicians from Kathy Dunderdale to Jack Harris are attacking the speculation with everything they’ve got.
Only morons react to speculation. That used to be one of the first things they taught you in politician school.
After all, if people like Jack Harris knew anything about search and rescue themselves (Hint: he knows jack], they would at least consider the possibility that contracting out for fixed wing search and rescue support could actually improve search and rescue service in the country.
Maybe contracted fixed-wing SAR flights coupled with military SAR helicopters would give better coverage at the same overall cost. Maybe, contracting out a bit of the work would let the federal government expand the number of fixed wing SAR aircraft such that the east coast would get dedicated SAR aircraft. Right now, Hercules based on Greenwood do SAR in addition to doing transport duties. That’s far from ideal.
Incidentally, your humble e-scribbler discussed some ideas for improving SAR in 2009 when the ghouls and panic puppies were working themselves into a lather about this on another occasion.
But notice that in that sentence about considering, your humble e-scribbler used the “could”. Conditional language. That’s because without knowing for sure what the cost and other implications might be, there’s no way of knowing whether contracting out search and rescue would be good or bad.
And maybe, as the Ottawa Citizen story notes, the air force folks will raise enough of a stink themselves that this idea will die quietly. The again , they might go along with it.
After all a whole bunch of people got their knickers in a bunch almost 30 years ago when the Canadian Forces retired the old Tracker aircraft. The federal fisheries department contracted out the surveillance flights and got better coverage with a new aircraft. Meanwhile, the Canadian Forces continued to patrol offshore. The two work quite well together with the military concentrating on Canada’s military security needs while fisheries looks after the civilian things.
SAR is a lot like that, actually. It’s a civilian thing that should be handled, at the very least, by the coast guard not the military. Farming it out to the private sector might not be a bad idea, if it improves the service - shorter launch times there Jack Harris? - without increasing costs.
Might even be better if the service came from a company based in Newfoundland and Labrador. Maybe Jack Harris should check with the folks at Provincial Aerospace. After all, they operate from his own riding.
Of course, folks like defence critic Jack Harris should know that.
He and his ilk don’t care about those sorts of issues because, like other politicians of the Danny Williams era, it is more important to be in a perpetual panic than to know what is actually going on.
- srbp -
Ottawa Citizen defence columnist David Pugliese posted this comment from a former Coast Guard employee on search and rescue. Interesting to see the quote from the Ocean Ranger inquiry report.
Some people like to quote selectively from it to suit their purposes. The helicopter basing discussion - the St. John’s base recommendation from the report was supposedly not implemented - is a classic example of an issue that was essentially invented by someone based entirely on a misrepresentation (deliberate or otherwise) of that report.
Pugliese’s correspondent offers a useful and possibly provocative perspective.
- srbp -
One of the most tragic and despicable beliefs to come out of the Cougar 491 crash in 2009 is that the outcome might have been different except for search and rescue service in Canada.
These days, politicians and others are latching onto is something they call “response time”. Now we’ll get back to that term in a minute but let us establish right from the outset that the most recent version of the search and rescue belief, whether from a grieving family member or a politician, is rooted firmly in the claim that search and rescue helicopters made the difference or could have made or will in the future make all the difference, “if only…”.
That basic idea has been there from the beginning: if only a helicopter from the Canadian Forces had been in St. John’s then more people might have been saved that day. If only the squadron - or a helicopter – had been in St. John’s, then more might have been saved. If only search and rescue didn’t have two different response times, then things would have been different.
The Transportation Safety Board report issued Wednesday is the most thorough and technically proficient examination of the crash to date. It identifies 16 factors that contributed to the disaster. Altering any one of them may have saved lives.
Not one of the factors identified was search and rescue “response” time or anything else related to search and rescue helicopters.
There’s a reason for that.
There is not now nor has there ever been a single shred of evidence that anything – absolutely anything - related to search and rescue response would have made the slightest bit of difference in this case or one comparable to it.
This brings us back to the idea of response time. People are using that term to mean the time it takes a helicopter crew to receive an order to go, to board the aircraft, warm up, do pre-flight checks and then launch the aircraft from the airport where it is.
That’s really “launch time”. Right now 103 Squadron in Gander launches within 30 minutes during daytime working hours and up to 120 minutes at other times. In practice, the launch time is much lower during “off hours”.
What people with the SAR fixation need to realise is that in order to deliver a response time of 30 minutes (as they are demanding), Canada would have to spend every penny of public money and even then there’d be no guarantee it could deliver that response time in all cases at all times.
You see, response time is really about the distance from the helicopter or ship to the incident.
Take a look at any map of Canada and the surrounding ocean and you’ll get an idea of the magnitude of that demand and why it is ludicrous. Just think how many ships, helicopters and crews would it take to have someone ready at any given location with 30 minutes of a crash, all day long, all year long.
That’s what a 30 minute response time means.
And if you want to talk about 30 minute launch time you can understand that the Canadian Forces currently hits that time to launch helicopters more often than not. Even after normal working hours, the sorts of launch times are not – apparently – trending toward that extreme time of 120 minutes.
Families whose loved ones died in a tragedy can be understood for their beliefs and their actions both as a natural part of grief and out of a human desire to ensure no one else feels the sort of soul-wrenching pain they have endured. Theirs is tragic belief in ever sense of the word tragedy
But for others, for the politicians and journalists, the ones who, even inadvertently, feed the belief in falsehood despite all the evidence, it isn’t so easy to find any generosity for them.
And the men and women who provide search and rescue service across Canada when the rest of us are fat and happy in our cozy beds?
They can only look in amazement at the ignorant critics, shake their heads and mutter how much better off we’d all be “if only…” as they head back to do their duty.
- srbp -
.
Not so very long ago a bunch of provincial politicians rushed forward to insist that the federal government ought to do more to help people in peril on the oceans offshore Newfoundland and Labrador.
Ignore for the moment that what most of them really wanted was more federal jobs in the east-end of Newfoundland.
Just notice that not a single one of those same politicians – federal or provincial – will dare step forward to endorse an idea that cropped up this past weekend in Labrador. Well, they won’t step forward as long as the scheme has to come from the provincial government’s coffers.
A fellow travelling the highway in the sparsely populated region of the province found himself in a nasty truck accident. It took police an hour and a half to make the trip by road and when they arrived, the police car didn’t include any sort of rescue equipment to help get the guy out of the twisted remains of his truck.
His idea is pretty simple:
"If they [the provincial government] had emergency services at those [highway maintenance] depots then they would have been there more quickly and they would have had the proper equipment to push my seat out of the way."
Now if someone could find a way to beg Ottawa for the money….
- srbp -
A CBC story on search and rescue off Newfoundland and Labrador seriously misrepresents the conclusions of a study conducted by air operational research and analysis staff of the Canadian Forces.
CBC’s online story claims in its title that “St. John’s [is the] best SAR base for oil: DND”.
The story also claimed that:
The 2000 report for DND, titled The Impact of Offshore Oil Operations on East Coast Search and Rescue, questioned whether Gander was the best location for DND to base its Cormorant SAR helicopters.
But the report itself - linked on the same CBC web page - tells a very different story. Incidentally, the report, really just the slides and notes for a presentation, is also erroneously dated 2003 in the pdf version title even though the document clearly comes from December 2000.
A detailed version apparently released in 2001 is mentioned at the end of the slides but CBC makes no reference to it in either the on air or on line stories.
The DND report looked at the impact offshore oil-related flights might have on search and rescue services. It did not question “whether Gander was the best location” for search and rescue service in Newfoundland and Labrador. The goal of the research was to determine what impact – if any – offshore flights to oil rigs would have on search and rescue service
In order to conduct the study, the researchers reviewed information on search and rescue performance generally in eastern Canada. They then projected the potential impact of offshore helicopter operations. They used several scenarios to try and forecast the potential impact because, as the study notes, there was only two to three years of data on which to base experience.
As it turned out the DND study, like offshore board projections, grossly over-estimated the number of crashes in the offshore.
The conclusions – listed clearly on Slide 37 of the presentation – show that Gander is clearly the optimal location of search and rescue service based on a number of factors including weather.
While the modelling used in the report appeared to show St. John’s as a better location for what it terms “Cougar-related” incidents, “since incident rates for Cougar will probably be quite small, the analysis performed on the historic data should prove greater utility in a direct comparison of Gander with St. John’s.”
In other words, because Cougar was unlikely to have a high number of incidents, the overall experience operating from a permanent base in Gander would likely tip the scales in favour of the continued use of Gander as the operating base.
-srbp-
CBC News reported Friday night that Cougar helicopters search and rescue helicopter can’t work at night.
The story isn’t online.
The front-end of the story makes it sound like a winch problem but the supposed culprit is the lack of an auto-hover capability. Apparently Cougar helicopters didn’t buy that feature.
Curious, given that the company knew when they bought the aircraft they had to provide a search and rescue (SAR) capability.
Curiouser too given that Sikorsky markets the S-92 as a SAR helicopter complete with forward-looking infra-red radar.
Now while the locals are using this as fuel for their cause to get a search and rescue squadron in St. John’s, the real issue here is starting to look more and more like Cougar and the offshore oil companies making conscious decisions to live up to the letter of the offshore board regulatory requirement but not the spirit of it.
After all, if they were genuinely concerned for worker safety, wouldn’t they find find the few extra bucks to buy a dedicated search and rescue helicopter that can do what needs to be done for their workers?
Incidentally, has anyone noted the number of times the provincial government – either the Premier or his natural resources/deputy premier stand-in – have tried to deny the government has any responsibility for offshore safety?
Funny that given that:
- the provincial government regulates the offshore through the board, and,
- as one of those offshore oil companies we talked about a minute ago with employees at White Rose and eventually Hebron, they have a direct responsibility - morally if nothing else - for ensuring their workers are safe.
It sure isn’t very comforting when the one organization that has responsibility for worker safety through not one but two of its activities tries to deny it has any responsibility at all for anything.
-srbp-
The crash of Cougar 91, carrying passengers to two of the country’s offshore oil platforms, has prompted calls for enhanced search and rescue service.
Unfortunately those calls are hampered by misunderstanding and misinformation.
Retired Canadian Forces colonel Michel Drapeau described a forward deployment scenario today for audiences of the noon-time CBC Radio current affairs program radio Noon. Drapeau talked about sending aircraft to St. John’s from existing SAR assets but Drapeau appeared to believe that existing SAR service is provided entirely from Nova Scotia.
Others have been calling for the creation of a new search and rescue squadron in St. John’s. This is justified on the basis that St. John’s is closest to the oil fields, among other things.
The eastern coast region covers the area from southern Nova Scotia to the northernmost tip of Labrador and extends eastward into the Atlantic to at least the 200 mile limit. That huge expanse is covered currently by three squadrons, as follows:
DND is currently finalising the purchase of up to 15 fixed wing search and rescue aircraft to replace the existing fleet of sic CC-115 Buffalo. The favoured aircraft appears to be the C-27 Spartan.
As well, DND is in the process of replacing the existing fleet of Hercules with the newer “J” model.
Given the large geographic area as well as the terrain and climatic conditions on the east coast, the search and rescue capability needs to come from a mix of aircraft. That’s the solution that has worked well.
Current attention is focused on St. John’s but the real weakness is the current basing which puts all the assets in the south and central with limited capability in the north.
Enhanced capability for east coast search and rescue could come from:
The in-flight refuelling tankers would be provided by the new CC-130J aircraft that would be dedicated to the SAR role. Currently, 413 aircraft are also used as transports.
Having dedicated in-flight refuelers would extend the range and time on station of Cormorants. Some aircraft will still have to fly longer distances but by refuelling in-flight, they will minimise the time currently taken by landing to refuel and launching again.
At the same time, these new fixed wing aircraft would not be multi-tasked as 413 Squadron is currently. 103’s new Hercules would also be available to support 413 Squadron.
Overall, this approach would enhance capability to the north where it is currently very limited. As well, the overall east coast where the majority of daily activity takes place would have capability for longer periods, farther out to sea than is currently available.
-srbp-
