National Defence committee  For six years I worked as a fishery observer through a private company called Seawatch Incorporated, a subcontractor under DFO. My role was basically to go out on various fishing vessels, depending upon where I was assigned, and to go out on a trip or two on each boat, basically

National Defence committee  Yes, perfectly, right on the button. Like I said, it was around seven o'clock when I started having doubts if I was going to make it or not. One of the young men was holding on to a piece of styrofoam. He let go of the aluminum boat he was holding on to with the other men and wa

National Defence committee  Between departments, the coast guard, or DFO and the coast guard, had that technology first-hand. They use it all the time. I don't know if search and rescue in Gander used that technology or if it was passed along via another department, but if they couldn't get airborne or coul

National Defence committee  From the time the incident started until she started listing over, by the time she was completely upside down, was approximately minutes. We got across the deck to the second deck and tried to release the life raft, and as we were doing so, she was gradually tipping over, and we

National Defence committee  Good evening. As you said, my name is Philip McDonald, and I survived the sinking of the Melina and Keith II on September 12, 2005. This was a day when whatever could go wrong did go wrong. While hitting turbulence at Cape Bonavista, the Melina and Keith II dipped her starboard

National Defence committee  A couple of minutes later, the EPIRB signal was picked up by satellite but it did not retrieve a position. It was not until 4:44 p.m. that the position was known. It was not until after that that the Gander search and rescue was notified of an emergency. However, the search and r