Good evening.
As you're all probably aware, I was the owner of the Sea Gypsy Enterprises, which sank on September 12, 2009, and two lives were lost. Just to fill you in on some of the details of the story, at approximately 11:10 the Sea Gypsy was in trouble and she issued a mayday. It took approximately one hour and 42 minutes for the helicopter to reach her position. It was in the middle of the day on a Saturday afternoon; they said the time was well within the guidelines for the reach. But the position of the Sea Gypsy Enterprises was approximately 67 miles from Cape Spear, which is at the mouth of St. John's harbour, or 67 miles you could say from St. John's airport. It took just about two hours, an hour and 42 minutes, for a helicopter to reach. A helicopter would be coming from St. John's airport, if you were in the water. Instead she had to leave Gander and one was tasked from Nova Scotia.
We'll never know the answers to what happened that day if a helicopter had been stationed in St. John's. One body, the body of Robert Keough, was recovered and he drowned. So we will not know if a helicopter had been there within 30 minutes or 45 minutes, if that man could still be alive today. And the body of Chris McCarthy was never recovered. We know he had his survival suit on, but we just don't have any answers as to what happened or anything else. All we know is we'll never see him again, and he left behind a wife and three children.
Some of the other questions, like the last survivor to be picked up that day.... It took about three and a half hours from the time the mayday went out for him to be rescued by the helicopter. He was spotted in the water by the captain. They were in the search and rescue helicopter flying around still trying to locate Chris and Daniel. Daniel was spotted by Larry Roach, the captain of the Sea Gypsy Enterprises. He just happened to spot him in the water.
Even though the weather was good and it was in the middle of the day, look at the chances of survival. When you look at that Saturday--I know I was here in St. John's when I got the call--it was a nice sunny Saturday morning about ten after eleven. When you think that nothing is going to happen that day, a lovely day, and if they were in the water they would be rescued within a few minutes or within normal time. But everything is a lot different when it's out on the Atlantic Ocean, as some of the speakers have said, and time is of the essence. You can picture any of us there now if we were put in the water and if you're three and a half hours there. September is the warmest time of the year, but as I say, one body was recovered. And that was in September. As the year goes on, or in early spring, the water is so much colder, the chance of survival....
Also, when you look at all the fishing activity and the men who fish there inside the 200 miles and outside the 200 miles, the majority of fishing activity is taking place right off the coast of St. John's, off the Avalon Peninsula. The majority of the oil activity is there. What I'm looking for is a search and rescue helicopter in St. John's. The airport is there; all the facilities are there. You're looking at one helicopter or whatever, to be manned 24 hours with a stand-down time.
In different terms, the city here can have probably six or eight fire halls, I don't know how many, that are manned 24 hours. We're looking for one helicopter. There's an airport there. All the facilities are there. We need a helicopter staffed and crewed 24 hours.
You can look at anything on figures. If an accident is going to happen, and they are going to happen—I never thought it could happen to me, but it did—it's going to happen where most of the activity is going ahead, and most of our activity in Newfoundland is off St. John's, off the Avalon Peninsula. I'm not asking you to take anything out of Gander. Those people in Gander need it for different parts of the island. But if you were going to put an extra search and rescue helicopter in Newfoundland, and you sat down and you looked at the map, but you also looked at where the fishing activity is, where the oil activity is going ahead, where all the shipping activity is from across the Atlantic, I think you'd pick the area that's closest to it, which normally would be St. John's.
I only come in on the last of Philip's speech. I knew Philip from before. I think he was an observer on my boat at one time. We've been involved in different aspects, with boats. What you don't realize, a lot of search and rescue efforts end in happy times. I know my boat, the Sea Gypsy Enterprise, she was at sea the day the Melina and Keith II went down. She wasn't too far away. She was at sea the night two men were lost from the Ryan's Commander. We're on record. I was a member of the coast guard search and rescue and we had several incidents over a number of years where we assisted ships and took people off burning boats. We all know that when something happens time is of the essence.
If there's a helicopter in Gander and the boat is sinking on the Grand Banks, or if there's a helicopter crashing in the ocean, same thing—minutes mean lives. We don't know how many. We'll never know. You can ask that question: could two lives be saved with Sea Gypsy Enterprise? I don't know, but nobody can answer. Nobody can say that they couldn't be saved. So if we're talking dollars, what price do we put on people's lives?
I always say the government never minds bringing in rules and regulations as long as they don't have to pay for it themselves, as long as they can hand them down and pass them on. And in the industries I've been involved in, there've been lots of rules and regulations passed down where the costs are absorbed by the people. The government does not absorb them. And when the government looks at different things, like with lighthouses and stuff like that, how many lighthouses do you have to close up on the east coast of Newfoundland, the east coast of Canada, the west coast, all over in B.C.? All the dollars they saved probably could have been channelled into search and rescue facilities.
I know we don't need all the lighthouses, with all the technology that's being brought in, but the dollars that are being saved from this could be transferred back to search and rescue facilities and helicopters.
Thank you.