TOFINO — A tour boat with 27 people aboard started sinking so fast that the crew did not appear to have time to even send a mayday call.
They were able to fire off emergency flares and nearby fishermen from a First Nations community quickly responded, Corene Inouye, director of operations for Jamie’s Whaling Station, the boat’s owner, said Monday at a news conference.
Leviathan II, on a tour of the ocean near Tofino, sank on Sunday afternoon in the Plover Reef area northwest of Tofino. Five people were killed, one is missing, and 21 were rescued.
“To the best of our knowledge, there was no distress call,” said Inouye. “From what we know at this stage, it appears the incident happened so quickly the crew didn’t have an opportunity to send out a mayday.”
Company owner Jamie Bray said he doesn’t know why the boat flipped and sank.
“This vessel has operated for 20 years with an absolutely perfect safety record,” Bray said at the news conference.
He said the 65-foot long Leviathan II flipped and when rescuers arrived it was still running and in gear, with its bow bobbing in the water.
Private vessels rushed to the scene after the mayday call, picking up survivors and bodies.
“We’re all traumatized,” Bray said, his voice shaking.
Marc-Andre Poisson, director of investigation for the Transportation Safety Board, said they don’t know what caused the boat to sink but they’ll be collecting data, conducting interviews, looking at weather conditions, analyzing photos and the maintenance records of the vessel.
Poisson said the boat has been towed away to a sheltered area to be examined.
“We understand people want answers rapidly. It is much too early to say what the causes and contributing factors of this accident may be,” he said.
“Investigations are complex and take time to complete. However, should the investigation team uncover safety deficiencies that present an immediate risk, the board will communicate them without delay, so they may be addressed quickly.”
All five people who died were British nationals, Britain’s Foreign Office confirmed on Monday.
“My thoughts are with the family and friends of all those affected by this terrible accident,” British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said in a statement, adding consular staff in B.C. are supporting grieving family members.
The B.C. Coroners Service said the people killed were four men and one woman, ranging in age from 18 to 76.
Three of the dead were living in Britain, while two of the British nationals were living in Canada. The woman was from B.C. and a man lived in Ontario, the service said.
Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade confirmed in a statement that an Australian man is missing.
Australian Associated Press reported that the 27-year-old Sydney man’s family said he was on the boat with his girlfriend and her family when it sank. His girlfriend’s father was among the five British citizens confirmed dead, the Australian news agency said.
Richard Little, owner of a water taxi called the Ahousaht Raider, said he arrived at the accident scene after volunteers had rescued survivors and removed many of the dead.
He said Leviathan II had not sunk but was bouncing up and down in the water, its bow up and stern down.
“I could see debris floating out of the cabin, the windows, door was slamming open and shut, and like cushions from seats and cushions from ... inside the boat were floating out of the boat,” he said.
He said he also saw a deflated life raft, still attached to the boat with a line.
The Ahousaht First Nation is the closest community to where the boat sank, about 15 kilometres northwest of Tofino.
Robert Burridge of Nanaimo was in Ahousaht on Sunday afternoon and estimates that every vessel that could be used in the village was in the water searching for missing people.
“The Ahousahts were the first on the scene,” he said. “They know these waters. They have a custom not to leave a body out at sea.”
Some of the 21 people who were rescued were injured.
Valerie Wilson, spokeswoman for Island Health, said four people who were rescued remained in different hospitals around the province. All four were listed in stable condition, she said.
In Tofino, residents Sean and Deddeda White arrived with flowers at the dock on Monday as an RCMP dive team prepared to leave for the accident scene.
Deddeda White said she gathered cedar bows and flowers from her garden to make the bouquet she left at the dock.
“This affects the whole town,” she said.
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