14 WING GREENWOOD – Two Nova Scotia fishermen returned home safely to their families on Sunday, June 4 after being rescued by searchers from 413 Squadron.
The men were fishing on the Bras D’Or Lakes Saturday evening when their boat caught fire, causing them to abandon ship. The men climbed into a life raft, used a cell phone to call for help, and then spent a cold and scary night waiting for rescuers to arrive.
Low cloud ceilings, poor visibility, high winds and fog challenged Captain Jacques Poirier and his crew as they headed out to find the missing duo.
“At the time of the call-out, the weather was really awful,” recalls Capt Poirier. “Once we got on scene, we could see a lot of waves, and several other boats trying to find them, including the Coast Guard, but that was about it. Visibility was initially poor but subsequently got better.”
The Joint Rescue Coordination Centre in Halifax was able to calculate how far the pair had drifted in their life raft and provide searchers with a fix on where the fishermen might be located, however, the winds kept getting stronger making the fishermen a moving target. “They were actually further south than where we originally thought,” recalls Capt Poirier.
Capt Poirier and his crew were heading back to Sydney to refuel (under instrument flight rules) when the Coast Guard radioed a message that someone on the shoreline spotted the life raft using binoculars. Capt Poirier and his crew immediately changed course, planned their descent through the clouds and headed for the fishermen.
“As soon as we broke through the clouds and got within a mile and a half, we saw the men jumping up and down, waving their arms and we made our plan of approach from there. We have lots of training to do this so we came up with a plan to lower our basket down to the raft and pull them up,” said Capt Poirier.
Once the aircraft returned to dry land with the fishermen, Capt Poirier says the pair expressed their appreciation for having been saved. “Knowing that these people are going back to their families is the most rewarding part of what we do. It’s great that within 12 hours of our initial call-out it’s case closed, these people are back home with their families. It’s a nice feeling.”
The other crew members on board the rescue mission were First Officer Lieutenant-Colonel Tom Hughes (Commanding Officer of 413 Squadron), Flight Engineer Sergeant Duane Brazil, and Search and Rescue Technicians Sergeant Yves St-Denis and MCpl Rod Smith.
