MPs want N.L. search and rescue improved
A motion to increase search and rescue capabilities in Newfoundland and Labrador passed by two votes in the House of Commons on Wednesday.
The motion, introduced by Liberal MP Judy Foote, calls for a dedicated, 24-hour helicopter search and rescue facility to be located close to the province's offshore oil activity.
All the offshore oil platforms operating near Newfoundland and Labrador are east of St. John's.
The motion by Foote, the MP for the Newfoundland riding of Random-Burin-St. George's, was supported by Liberal, NDP and Bloc Québécois legislators. The Conservative government's members opposed it.
The Department of National Defence has three search and rescue Cormorant helicopters based in the central Newfoundland community of Gander, about 335 kilometres northwest of St. John's. Those helicopters service all of Atlantic Canada.
In addition, Cougar Helicopters, the company contracted to transport offshore workers to oil production platforms, is under contract to the offshore oil companies to provide search and rescue services as well.
Cougar can convert one of its St. John's-based Sikorsky S92A choppers into a search and rescue vehicle — but it does not have a helicopter solely dedicated to search and rescue.
A royal commission on the 1982 Ocean Ranger marine disaster, which claimed 84 lives when an offshore oil rig was destroyed during a February storm, recommended 24 years ago that search and rescue capabilities be improved. The chair of the royal commission, former Newfoundland chief justice Alex Hickman, said last March that that recommendation was never followed.
"Our recommendation was to ensure that there be a fully equipped, long-range helicopter, with a standby time of 15 minutes during daylight hours, 45 minutes during night, be stationed near the nearest airport to the Grand Banks, which obviously was St. John's," Hickman told the CBC in March, days after 17 people died when a Cougar helicopter crashed into the ocean as it was returning to St. John's.
Hickman's 1985 report after the Ocean Ranger disaster included the following recommendation: "That there be required a full-time search and rescue dedicated helicopter, provided by either government or industry, fully equipped to search and rescue standards, at the airport nearest to the ongoing offshore drilling operations, and that it be readily available with a trained crew able to perform all aspects of the rescue."
An inquiry into March's Cougar crash, headed by former Newfoundland and Labrador Supreme Court judge Robert Wells, is to report by March 31 on what can be done to improve safety in offshore helicopter transportation.