The wreckage of a float plane is lifted from the water onto a barge in Lyall Harbour at Saturna Island, B.C., on Dec. 1, 2009.DARRYL DYCK/The Canadian Press
The pilot of a floatplane that crashed at Saturna Island last month killing six passengers has begun a dialogue with the Transportation Safety Board, which is investigating the tragedy.
Bill Yearwood, a board investigator, said he met with the pilot in a Victoria hospital on Monday and had a further conversation by telephone today with the unidentified pilot, who has six years experience.
"It's not a one-way interview," said Mr. Yearwood, suggesting further conversations were likely as the pilot regains his health.
"It's an opportunity for him to learn what happened."
Mr. Yearwood said he expected the pilot would eventually come to the Richmond base of the TSB to look at the wreckage of the single-engine de Havilland Canada Beaver, owned and operated by Seair Seaplanes of Richmond.
The pilot managed to escape from the aircraft along with a female passenger after it went down Nov. 30 in Lyall Harbour of Saturna Island, about 50 kilometres south of Vancouver.
Six passengers, including a baby, drowned.
Mr. Yearwood, following board protocols, declined to go into detail about the specifics of what the pilot said, Asked about the conversations, he said they "cleared some things, but not everything," adding: "We have got a lot of work to do."
He said the pilot was "somewhat" able to recollect the incident in a manner useful for the investigation, but that investigators have already gathered some of the material from other sources.
Since the crash, the TSB has disclosed that the plane landed on its belly, and was not overloaded at the time of the 4 p.m. incident.
The Seair operations manager said the "banged up" pilot was recovering from broken bones, cuts and bruises.
However, Terry Hiebert said he expected the pilot would "at some point" return to the air.
"We don't even want to speculate when that will be. I've heard numerous stories on how long that will be."
Seair initially suspended flights, but Mr. Hiebert said the company has resumed flights but not changed its protocols.
Prior to the crash, Seair had two accidents in the past nine years, but both were non fatal.
"We're not doing anything differently. We haven't been told to do anything differently. Of course, we're reassuring our customers, but they're also reassuring us that we are a very safe company and they will continue to fly with us.
"They realize it was an accident."
Ian Bailey