The B.C. coroner's office has created a death review panel to take a comprehensive look at float-plane safety after four crashes that killed 22 people in less than two years.
Coroner Barb McLintock said in an interview Wednesday that death review panels can be convened when multiple-fatality cases occur in similar circumstances. Unlike public inquests, panel discussions occur in private, although the recommendations are made public, she said.
The panels, created through a legislative change in 2007, have so far addressed four issues: motorcycles, domestic violence, avalanches involving snowmobile operators, and tree fallers. Tom Pawlowski, the provincial coroner who specializes in industry deaths, will lead the float-plane safety panel. Various aviation experts and officials, including representatives of the commercial float-plane sector and the federal transportation safety board, will also participate.
A total of 22 people died in B.C. in four commercial floatplane crashes - two on water, and two on land - between August 2008 and May 2010.
"To be honest, we were getting a little tired of these coastal plane crashes," McLintock said from Victoria.
Since then, there have been a handful of private and commercial float-plane accidents in B.C., but only one death - a passenger killed on Aug. 24, 2011, when a private plane operated by a friend crashed on Upper Arrow Lake.
McLintock could not say when the float-plane panel would conclude its work, only that panel members would not be identified until that time. One area to be discussed is the need for life vests to be worn by passengers in flight, so they don't risk drowning after escaping from a plane crash in water.
"There's a lot of issues," McLintock said. "It's become quite broadranging."
On Nov. 29, 2009, a Seair Seaplanes de Havilland Beaver plane stalled during takeoff and crashed in Lyall Harbour off Saturna Island. Six passengers died, while the pilot and one other passenger escaped with injuries. A coroner's report into the crash obtained by The Vancouver Sun notes the deaths were accidental and progress is being made on safety issues by the float-plane industry and Transport Canada.
Seair Seaplanes of Richmond has ordered improved door-latch releases and push-out windows, has enhanced pre-flight briefings to passengers, and provided hand-held baggage scales on its aircraft so pilots can better calculate weight and balance, the report found.
Patrick Morrissey, whose wife and infant daughter died in the crash, said it was a "preventable accident" with several contributing factors such as improper loading and a stall warning system that didn't work. Citing ongoing industry safety initiatives such as support for passengers wearing life vests in flight, he said all that's left is for Transport Canada to make these "seemingly acceptable changes mandatory."
A safety-board report in March 2011 into the Seair crash recommended that passengers on all commercial float planes in Canada be required to wear life vests, while the planes themselves should be fitted with easily opened emergency exits.
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