ST. JOHN'S, N.L. — A provincial group advocating for improved search and rescue services is hoping the start of the Burton Winters inquiry and the recovery of a sunken fishing vessel in Nova Scotia will help spur change in Newfoundland and Labrador.
At a Monday morning press conference, Concerned Citizens Group for Search and Rescue (CC-SAR-NL), says the current system is “broken and it needs fixing, once and for all.”
Group chair Merv Wiseman was joined by Melissa Mayo-Norman, who lost her husband Scott when the 36-foot fishing vessel the Sara Anne, went down during a crab fishing trip last May. Four other men perished in the same incident.
The vessel was never located.
Mayo-Norman says despite her best efforts to acquire information from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Marine Transportation Safety Board, she has hit a wall.
“If it were not for my own investigations and initiatives in trying to find answers, nothing would be done to get to answers to the terrible and mysterious loss of the Sarah Anne and its four-man crew,“ she states in the release. “The thing is, no one has a clue as to why or how it happened. This is simply not acceptable!”
The release also highlights how the TSB, in their view, is incapable of completing the investigation because they’ve never made a meaningful effort to locate the vessel.
Wiseman, a retired SAR coordinator with the Canadian Coast Guard, points to the recent recovery of the Chief William Saulis in Nova Scotia, a full-month after it capsized, as an indication that locating lost vessels can be done.
Wiseman believes that an ad hoc approach every time an incident occurs is not going to fix the problem.
“We’re not talking about just minor injuries here, but people dying. It’s not acceptable in any other industry and does not reflect who we are as Canadians and our values.”
