the Island Lady, victim of a fatal shipwreck in September 2021, had no warning system or registration issued by Transport Canada. According to the final report from the Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) released on Wednesday, these are important risk factors.
Fishermen Joey Jenkins and Mark Russell went out fishing for cod off Newfoundland and Labrador at 6 a.m. on September 17, 2021.
The last communication from the boat, made by Marc Russell around 4 p.m., was to say that the Island Lady was going to return to the wharf Mary’s Harbor around 17H.
The two men and the boat have been missing since.
The investigation of TSB does not make it possible to determine with certainty the cause of this disappearance, but hypothesizes that the crew of the boat sank and that the crew unexpectedly found underwater.
However, the report points out that the Island Lady had no functional distress alerting system on board.
Consequently, the absence of a distress signal delayed search and rescue operations.
The search area was large, which greatly reduced the chances of survival for the crewsays the report.
The story repeats itself
Fifteen similar events, involving fishing vessels without warning devices, were reported to the TSB between 2015 and 2021. A total of 34 fishermen lost their lives.
According to TSBthe addition of an alert device, combined with life-saving devices, increases the chances of survival in the event of distress.
Furthermore, the TSB recommends that the DFO requires that any vessel used for commercial fishing has an up-to-date registration issued by Transport Canada.
Although this registration provides greater safety oversight, many fishing vessels — including the Island Lady — have only the registration of the DFO.
Despite the various initiatives underway to improve the culture of safety in the commercial fishing industry, the same shortcomings continue to be seen on fishing vessels.can we read in the press release of the TSB.
Radio Canada
Source: Radio-Canada
