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Woman rescued after boat sinks off Qld's Fraser Island

A woman has been rescued while the search for a man continues after the pair were reported missing from a sinking vessel in water off Queensland's Fraser Island.

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Two people were on board the vessel of the northern tip of the island, also known as K'gari, when they radioed for help about 8.30pm on Sunday, police said.

Police and volunteer marine services began an air and water search before rescue helicopter crews plucked the woman from the water about 11.30am on Monday.

She will be airlifted to Bundaberg Hospital for treatment.

The search involving multiple aircraft and vessels continues for a missing male.

Australian Associated Press

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Woman rescued after boat sinks off Qld’s Fraser Island

John Crouch | May 15, 2023

A woman has been rescued while the search for a man continues after the pair were reported missing from a sinking vessel in water off Queensland’s Fraser Island.

Two people were on board the vessel of the northern tip of the island, also known as K’gari, when they radioed for help about 8.30pm on Sunday, police said.

Police and volunteer marine services began an air and water search before rescue helicopter crews plucked the woman from the water about 11.30am on Monday. 

She will be airlifted to Bundaberg Hospital for treatment.

The search involving multiple aircraft and vessels continues for a missing male.

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Pictures shows Aussie campers’ costly disaster as car is swamped off K’gari

They say a rising tide lifts all boats – if only it did the same for these campers.

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They say a rising tide lifts all boats – if only it did the same for Jeeps.

An off-road trip to one of Australia’s premiere adventure destinations became a costly disaster for one group of campers this weekend as incredible photos emerged showing an immense towing operation on Fraser Island (K’gari).

In the captivating series of images shared online, a Jeep and camper trailer are plucked from the depths just off the shores of the famous island.

According to Fraser Island Towing , which needed to call in a second tow crew for assistance, the group became stuck while travelling to Coongul Creek, a popular campground on the western side of K’gari.

In one image, presumably taken when the crew first arrived, the car and camper are so swamped that a boat can be seen floating just metres from the vehicle.

Subsequent photos show the vehicle and trailer emerging as the tide drops before being winched to dry land by a tow truck.

In its post, the towing company urged extra caution in the area with the presence of “unforgiving terrain on that side of the island”.

Based on similar models of each selling online, news.com.au estimates the car and trailer are worth upwards of $54,000 – that’s excluding the group’s camping gear and other possessions.

Motoring forums suggest the car would not run again with such an inundation of salt water.

If by chance it could, it would be due to a repair job that would most likely exceed the value of the car.

News.com.au tried to reach the towies involved in the impressive rescue but was told they were out of range.

Whether or not it is a classic case of “all the gear – no idea” remains a mystery but the court of public opinion in Fraser Island Towing’s comment section was quick to give its two cents on the camping disaster.

“Seriously, how does it get that far into the water – I’m no expert, but even I know there are things to avoid or wait to do because of the tide,” one person wrote.

“As the owner of a two-door Jeep, these things are the most capable 4x4s money can buy,” another said.

“I can’t get mine bogged if I try. So either they drove into an extremely soft bog hole, or they had no idea what they were doing.”

Others say the first image of the car and trailer underwater appear to show it may have jackknifed causing it to bog.

Others felt for the campers, who no doubt will be left with ruined holiday and a damage bill likely to exceed tens of thousands of dollars.

“Oh no. That would spoil their holiday. Poor things,” one woman said.

Another man added: “Well that’s their travels done. Very sad.”

Fraser Island, which was formally renamed K’gari in 2023, is a World Heritage-listed island made mostly of sand which presents challenging off-road conditions.

Its wide beaches, fishing, wildlife, and wilderness camping have made it a must-stop for outdoor-oriented Australians and tourists alike over the decades.

However, Fraser Island Towing ’s website warns of high tow costs, given the logistics of such operations, and a potential lack of roadside assistance and insurance coverage when on the island – depending on coverage plans.

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Man dies, two rescued after yacht capsizes off Lady Elliot Island

Topic: Maritime Accidents and Incidents

The overturned yacht off Lady Elliot Island. ( Supplied: RACQ LifeFlight Rescue )

The search for a sailor who went missing when a yacht overturned off the Queensland coast has ended in tragedy after his body was recovered.

Police said the 65-year-old man had been travelling on the yacht from Yeppoon to Brisbane when an EPIRB was activated about four nautical miles south of Lady Elliot Island about 5am Sunday.

The vessel was found shortly after 10:15am with two men in the water.

RACQ LifeFlight said the father and son had managed to climb onto the upside-down vessel to raise the alarm.

They were winched into a rescue helicopter.

The search and rescue operation involved multiple vessels, police divers and the rescue helicopter. ( Supplied: RACQ LifeFlight Rescue )

"It's believed the keel snapped on the boat the men were on, causing it to overturn," LifeFlight said in a media release.

Police said a 62-year-old man and 27-year-old man were taken to Bundaberg Hospital where they remained in a stable condition.

They said the body of the 65-year-old man was found shortly after 2pm.

Police said all three men were from Yeppoon.

FWD and trailer swamped in water off K'gari, Fraser Island after campers trip to iconic tourist site 'didn't go to plan'

A camping holiday on an iconic Australian island has ended in disaster after a 4WD and trailer were swept away and submerged in water. See the stunning photos.

Fraser Island Towing on Sunday uploaded photos to Facebook of a 4WD trailer and a two-door grey Jeep trapped under Coongal Creek waters off K’gari, formerly Fraser Island, in Queensland.

In one photo, a fishing boat lingered just metres from the sunken off-roaders, estimated to be worth $54,000, which became stuck while travelling to a campground on the western side of K’gari.

With no land in sight, the car and trailer bobbed precariously above the water with camping gear strapped to the roof seen in another alarming image.

More photos showed towing crews hoisting the vehicle and trailer onto dry land with the help of a second tow truck which was called for assistance, according to Fraser Island Towing.

“These campers’ trip to Coongal Creek on the Western Side of the island didn’t go to plan,” the company wrote on Facebook.

“4wd and Trailer recovered by Fraser Island Towing and Rainbow Beach Towing, with extra caution due to the unforgiving terrain on that side of the island.”

Meanwhile, shocked Queenslanders were quick to lambast the catastrophe in the comments.

“As the owner of a 2 door Jeep, these things are the most capable 4x4s money can buy. I can't get mine bogged if I try,” one person wrote.

“So, either they drove into an extremely soft bog hole, or they had no idea what they were doing.”

Another shocked person warned against beach driving as the tide was incoming upon seeing the debacle.

“Too late now,” they added.

Meanwhile, others handed their sympathy to the campers, expressing how “sad” the disaster was. 

 “Hope they are all okay,” a comment read.

“Oh no. That would spoil their holiday. Poor things,” added another.

SkyNews.com.au reached out to Fraser Island Towing for more information however the company was unavailable for comment.

It is unclear whether insurance would have covered the campers’ costs for the recovered car however Fraser Island Towing’s website said most insurance policies do cover such a mishap.

“You should check your policy specifically before heading over,” the company added.

“Give us a call as soon as you’ve had an accident and we can help you navigate the recovery and insurance process of an accident on the Island.”

K’gari is a World Heritage-listed island made mostly of sand and it has challenging off-road conditions.

Its wide beaches, fishing, wildlife, and wilderness camping make camping a must-stop for outdoor-oriented Australians and holidaymakers alike over the decades.

In the 2021 census, the island had a population of 152 people and up to 500,000 people visit the island each year.

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Some of the Sicily Yacht Sinking Victims May Have Suffocated After Air Pocket Ran Out, More Testing Needed: Sources

Seven people were killed when the luxury vessel, carrying 12 passengers and 10 crew, sank amid severe weather off the coast of Sicily last month

Family Handout/PA Wire

More testing will be needed to determine how some victims died in the Sicily yacht sinking last month , a source tells PEOPLE.

Preliminary autopsy results on Chairman of Morgan Stanley International Jonathan Bloomer and his wife, Judy Bloomer , “show they died from suffocation,” says the source, who is close to the investigation of the sinking.

However, tests on their tissues are now underway to definitively determine whether or not the couple died of suffocation because an air bubble in the yacht cabin they were in ran out of oxygen and filled with carbon dioxide, the source says, or if breathing in water was the cause.

Related: Sunken Yacht's Crew Reveals What They Say Happened Before Tragedy: 'Thrown Into the Water' and 'Walking on the Walls'

Sources tell PEOPLE the tests could take as long as a few weeks to be carried out and for the results to be released.

The Bloomers were among seven people who died when the luxury yacht  Bayesian  sank off the coast of Porticello early on Aug. 19 amid severe weather, officials have said.

Twenty-two people were onboard — 12 passengers and 10 crew — and the seven victims included the Bloomers; New York City-based lawyer Christopher Morvillo and his wife , jewelry designer Neda Morvillo; British tech businessman Mike Lynch and his daughter Hannah ; and the yacht’s chef, Recaldo Thomas .

Autopsies for the Lynches and Thomas will be conducted on Friday, the source close to the investigation confirms to PEOPLE.

On Monday, Sept. 2, the Associated Press and Italian news agency ANSA reported that the autopsies of Christopher and Neda Morvillo ruled their cause of death as drowning.

In the days since, however, some uncertainty has been raised about exactly how the six victims suffocated in their cabins. (The seventh victim, Thomas, the chef, was found outside the Bayesian .)

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer​​, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. 

CNN  and the  La Repubblica  newspaper  reported that the initial autopsies done on the four victims so far indicated they were killed by “atypical drowning” and, according to  La Repubblica,  the Bloomers and the Morvillos “had no water in their lungs, trachea, or stomach.”

Reuters reported that the initial autopsies of the four victims so far "indicated they had died of suffocation as oxygen ran out on the stricken vessel" but "[m]ore forensic tests were ordered."

Sources caution to PEOPLE that this examination and testing will need to be done before it is confirmed how those victims suffocated.

Other causes of death have been ruled out.

Medical experts say that in some cases of drowning, water doesn't enter the lungs because of an involuntary reflex in the throat, leading to suffocation.

So-called "dry drowning" is not a medically preferred term as water is always a factor in these cases.

PERINI NAVI PRESS OFFICE/HANDOUT/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

Girolamo Bentivoglio Fiandra, head of the Palermo Fire Brigade, spoke at a news conference last month as the yahct victims were formally identified and shared details of their final moments and where they were recovered.

“It was quite clear that people [inside] were trying to hide in the cabins. In the left-hand side, we found the first five bodies in the left-hand side cabins, and the final body on the right-hand side. We found them on the highest part of the ship which was closer to the surface. The vessel had three cabins on each side,” Fiandra said then.

Related: Captain Who Saw Sicily Yacht Sink Says Mike Lynch’s Wife Didn’t Want to Leave Scene Without Husband and Daughter

He also said that the five who "took refuge in the cabins on the left side of the sailboat" had been "searching for air pockets."

A broader investigation is ongoing into how, exactly, the  Bayesian  sank in August — in what some witnesses have said was a quickly unfolding tragedy that has puzzled observers, given the yacht’s size and apparent capability to withstand bad weather.

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Read the original article on People .

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Billionaire's yacht sinking: 4 victims died of suffocation, autopsies suggest

The autopsies on cook recaldo thomas and mike lynch were expected to be conducted on friday, with hannah lynch due to follow on saturday.

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Published: Thu 5 Sep 2024, 9:39 PM

Last updated: Thu 5 Sep 2024, 9:40 PM

Initial examinations of four of the people killed when British tech tycoon Mike Lynch's family yacht sank off Sicily last month indicated they had died of suffocation as oxygen ran out on the stricken vessel, judicial sources said on Thursday.

Lynch, his daughter Hannah, an onboard cook and four guests died when the Bayesian, a British flagged 56-metre (184-feet) superyacht, sank during a severe and sudden weather event off the port of Porticello, near Palermo, on Aug. 19.

First results from autopsies on four of the victims — Morgan Stanley International chairman Jonathan Bloomer, his wife Judy, lawyer Chris Morvillo and his wife Neda — suggested that they died from suffocation, having been trapped on the ship.

Stay up to date with the latest news. Follow KT on WhatsApp Channels.

More forensic tests were ordered, with results expected in the coming weeks, the sources said.

The autopsies on cook Recaldo Thomas and Mike Lynch were expected to be conducted on Friday, with Hannah Lynch due to follow on Saturday.

The bodies of the dead, except for the cook, were found in the cabins on the left-hand side of the boat, where the passengers may have tried to search for remaining bubbles of air, the head of Palermo's Fire Brigade said last month.

James Cutfield, the ship captain, and crew members Tim Parker Eaton and Matthew Griffiths have been placed under investigation by the Italian authorities for potential manslaughter and shipwreck.

Being investigated does not imply guilt and does not mean formal charges will follow.

Griffiths, who was on watch duty on the night of the disaster, has told investigators that the crew members did everything they could to save those on board the Bayesian, according to comments reported by Italian news agency Ansa last week.

The sinking has puzzled naval experts, who said a vessel like the Bayesian, built by Perini, a high-end yacht manufacturer owned by The Italian Sea Group, should have withstood the storm and, in any case, should not have sunk as quickly as it did.

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Manslaughter investigation into bayesian superyacht shipwreck will take months, expert says.

Photo: ALBERTO PIZZOLI/AFP

A manslaughter investigation into the sinking of a superyacht that killed seven people will take months if not longer, a New Zealand maritime lawyer says.

Italian prosecutors are investigating the captain of the Bayesian , New Zealand citizen James Cutfield, along with two crew members for the crimes of manslaughter and shipwreck after the sinking off the coast of Sicily.

Being investigated does not imply guilt and does not mean formal charges will follow.

The owner of the Bayesian , British tech tycoon Mike Lynch , and six other people on board were killed when the British-flagged yacht capsized on 19 August during a storm.

While an investigation had begun, Oceanlaw New Zealand partner Karyn van Wijngaarden warned it would not be a short process.

Italian Carabinieri patrol the port as the search continues for six passengers missing from luxury yacht that sank off the coast of Porticello, north-western Sicily, on 19 August 2024. Photo: AFP

"Prosecutors will be considering the events leading up to the sinking and whether or not it was a freak incident," van Wijngaarden said.

The weather on the day of the sinking, actions taken by the crew and how the vessel was run would all be looked at - a process that would take many months, van Wijngaarden said.

A further complication was that the Bayesian was at the bottom of "quite a considerable" volume of water .

"Even just getting to it seems challenging."

The underlying criminal law in this case appeared to be similar to that of the Costa Concordia , a cruise liner that ran aground and sank near the Tuscan Island of Giglio in 2012 , killing 32 people, van Wijngaarden said.

In that case, the ship's captain Francesco Schettino was found guilty of manslaughter, causing a maritime accident and abandoning ship and sentenced to 16 years' imprisonment .

"The Bayesian investigation is in relation to causing a shipwreck and manslaughter - which I understand is the same as the Costa Concordia case," van Wijngaarden said.

"It's important to remember we have the benefit of hindsight with the Costa Concordia , while the Bayesian investigation is in [its] early stages."

The Costa Concordia in 2012, after it capsized off the coast of the Tuscan island of Giglio. Photo: AFP

In the Costa Concordia case, it took about three years for Schettino to be found guilty, van Wijngaarden said, so it could be a "really long time" before anything happened in this case.

"After he was found guilty there was a series of appeals and my understanding is you don't start your prison sentence in Italy until the appeals are exhausted, so it could be many years before this is concluded."

For formal charges to be laid, van Wijngaarden said prosecutors would need to consider if any person or people were at fault for the sinking.

"They'd likely need to establish the person failed to do something - like failing to respond when the vessel got into trouble."

It was possible that civil claims or disputes relating to the loss of the vessel could also arise in coming months, she said.

Copyright © 2024 , Radio New Zealand

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Italian officials confirm Mike Lynch's body has been retrieved and his teenage daughter is the last person to remain missing.

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Bayesian yacht sinking latest: Captain ‘insists he did everything he could’ to save passengers

Captain james cutfield, ship engineer tim parker eaton and sailor matthew griffith all under investigation for manslaughter, article bookmarked.

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The captain of the Bayesian has insisted that he did everything possible to save those on board the superyacht , according to local reports.

Sources close to James Cutfield, 51, told the Italian newspaper Corriere Della Sera that the 51-year-old New Zealander is currently living through the darkest days of his life as he is under investigation for possible manslaughter and culpable shipwreck charges.

They reportedly said Mr Cutfield repeatedly insists that he did not abandon any of the 22 passengers and crew and that he did everything could could to save them.

However, there reached a point when he could do little as the vessel had taken on too much water, they added.

Since Wednesday, Tim Parker Eaton, the engineer who was in charge of securing the yacht’s engine room, and sailor Matthew Griffith, who was on watch duty on the night of the disaster, are also under investigation for the same possible charges , their lawyer said on Friday.

British technology tycoon Mike Lynch and his 18-year-old daughter Hannah were among the seven people who were killed after his superyacht capsized and went down on 19 August within minutes of being hit by a pre-dawn storm off the coast of Sicily .

In Focus | How the world of yachts got supersized

The sinking of the 56-metre yacht  Bayesian  and the tragic deaths of British tech tycoon Mike Lynch and his guests and boat staff have given the public a glimpse into the rarefied world of superyachts, writes  Boat Internationa l’s  Lucy Dunn .

There are currently 12,626 superyachts on the water around the world with 1,166 superyachts in build or on order. If you have been to a Greek island this year, or maybe the Amalfi coast, you may have glimpsed them coming in and out of harbours and wondered who owns a yacht like that. Or who can afford to charter a yacht like that – which have an average price of around £180,000 a week.

While you may think of glossy influencers and A-listers, the superyachting fraternity is where millionaires are sorted from the billionaires from the centi-billionaires; the 0.001 per centers. Rarely will you find a celebrity with the financial clout to afford a yacht owned by Lynch, these are generally under-the-radar industry titans who don’t have household names.

So, what exactly makes a superyacht super? According to Boat International, where I work, it can be applied to any boat, motor or sailing yacht which is over 24 metres in length. Size, in the superyacht world, is everything – and yachts are getting bigger all the time.

Giant masts, moon pools and explorer pods: How the world of yachts got supersized

The sinking of Mike Lynch’s ‘unsinkable’ sailing vessel was not only a heartbreaking tragedy, but also gave us a rare glimpse into the superyachting fraternity. Here, Boat International’s Lucy Dunn looks at a group that is both secretive and innovative, and asks how such a high-spec sailing yacht could have sunk at all...

Watch: Captain details Bayesian sinking 'within two minutes' after rescuing survivors

Ex-court appointed guard says mike lynch ‘became more like a family’.

A court-appointed armed guard, tasked with ensuring Mike Lynch did not abscond while facing fraud charges, has paid tribute to the tech mogul, saying the security team “became less of a detail and more like a family”.

Rolo Igno also described “the memory of a beautiful soul” in Mr Lynch’s daughter Hannah.

Mr Igno said he had the “privilege” of spending “almost every waking moment” with Mr Lynch while he was in custody in San Francisco, describing the detail as unlike any other he had ever worked and one that was “life changing”.

“As an executive protection agent, the number one rule is simple, don’t ever get close to the principal,” he said.

“They aren’t your friends, they’re a client and the relationship is strictly professional. But with Mike, that didn’t fly with him and for me that rule quickly dissolved.”

Bayesian captain ‘exercised right to silence’ in manslaughter probe questioning, lawyer says

The captain of the Bayesian yacht chose not to respond to prosecutors’ questions as he was spoken to for a third time on Tuesday, his lawyer has said.

James Cutfield, a 51-year-old New Zealand national, is under investigation for possible manslaughter and culpable shipwreck charges.

“The captain exercised his right to remain silent for two fundamental reasons,” lawyer Giovanni Rizzuti told reporters. “First, he’s very worn out. Second, we were appointed only on Monday and for a thorough and correct defence case we need to acquire a set of data that at the moment we don’t have.”

Being placed under investigation does not imply guilt or mean that charges will necessarily follow. Chief prosecutor Ambrogio Cartosio has said his team would consider each possible element of responsibility including those of the captain, the crew, individuals in charge of supervision and the yacht’s manufacturer.

The Times  reported one of Mr Cutfield’s lawyers as saying that the captain is “understandably very shaken up” after the ordeal last Monday.

Watch: Moment Bayesian yacht engulfed by storm

Mike lynch’s wife did not want to leave scene of bayesian wreck without her family, says captain of boat near sinking.

Mike Lynch’s wife did not want to leave the scene of the Bayesian wreck without her family, the captain of a boat near the sinking has said.

Karsten Borner, the captain of the Sir Robert Baden Powell, which helped to rescue the 15 survivors of the disaster in Sicily, told People that Angela Bacares “didn’t want to leave because her husband and her daughter were still down”.

British technology tycoon Mr Lynch and one of the daughters he has with Ms Bacares, 18-year-old Hannah, were among the seven people who were killed after his superyacht capsized and went down on 19 August within minutes of being hit by a pre-dawn storm.

Four crew members who are not under investigation have left Palermo

Four other crew members, who have not been placed under investigation, have left Palermo.

Two of them headed for Dubai and the other two travelled to Istanbul.

Watch: Mike Lynch’s friend mourns ‘unbelievably tragic’ death after fraud trial acquittal

Crew member under investigation over bayesian sinking leaves palermo, says source.

A crew member who has been placed under investigation for manslaughter and shipwreck in connection with the sinking of the Bayesian has now left Palermo, according to a source.

Sailor Matthew Griffith was on watch duty on the night the superyacht sank in Sicily, the source said.

He flew out of Palermo late on Wednesday, with the source saying he was heading for the French city of Nice.

Those under investigation have no obligation to stay in Italy but have to nominate lawyers so that the authorities have a way of remaining in contact with them.

The boat's 51-year-old captain James Cutfield, a New Zealander, and ship engineer Tim Parker Eaton have both been put under investigation for the same crimes.

Members of yachting community signal support for captain and crew of Bayesian as some under investigation

Members of the yachting community have signalled their support for the captain and crew of the Bayesian as some have been placed under investigation.

One wrote on social media: “Now we need those keyboard warriors and judgemental ‘know it alls’ to actually wait and listen to the unbiased actual professionals ...

“I still stand in support of all Bayesian crew and if things turn sour, I propose all my friends in yachting to stand together and sign a strong petition to support the remaining survived crew to Bayesian.”

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Final body from sunken superyacht recovered off Sicily

Rescuers scouring the wreckage of the superyacht that sank off the Sicilian coast have brought ashore the body of the last person missing from the luxury boat, believed to be the daughter of a British tech magnate.

The body of Mike Lynch 's 18-year-old daughter, Hannah, was discovered early Friday — the culmination of a challenging five-day rescue operation.

NBC News later witnessed a body bag being taken ashore from a boat in Porticello, a port near the Italian island’s main city, Palermo.

The family had been apparently celebrating his recent acquittal on fraud charges in the United States with people who defended him at the trial. But the 184-foot Bayesian went down during a freak storm while anchored off the coast of Palermo early Monday.

Fifteen people were rescued, but six others were declared missing. Divers brought out the bodies of five of them from the shi p's wreck Thursday , with one of them identified as Lynch. One other body, of the ship’s cook Recaldo Thomas, was recovered shortly after the accident.

A spokesperson for the Lynch family said Friday: “The Lynch family is devastated, in shock and is being comforted and supported by family and friends. Their thoughts are with everyone affected by the tragedy. They would like to sincerely thank the Italian coastguard, emergency services and all those who helped in the rescue. Their one request now is that their privacy be respected at this time of unspeakable grief.”

As the massive search and rescue effort neared its end Friday, attention was turning to the investigation into exactly what caused the tragedy.

The accounts of survivors that have emerged through the Italian medics who treated them have suggested the sinking took place in mere minutes and came as a shock.

The ship’s designer said in interviews that he believes the incident could have been caused by human error.

The local prosecutor's office has launched an investigation, and has scheduled a news conference Saturday.

Claudio Lavanga and Claudia Rizzo reported from Porticello and Yuliya Talmazan from London.

Claudio Lavanga is Rome-based foreign correspondent for NBC News.

Claudia Rizzo is an Italy based journalist.

Yuliya Talmazan is a reporter for NBC News Digital, based in London.

This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies for distribution to your colleagues, clients or customers visit http://www.djreprints.com.

https://www.barrons.com/news/watchman-woke-captain-ahead-of-sicily-yacht-sinking-reports-14a53f49

• FROM AFP NEWS

Watchman Woke Captain Ahead Of Sicily Yacht Sinking: Reports

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The sailor on duty the night a superyacht sank off the coast of Sicily last month, killing seven people, had sounded an alarm and woke the captain, Italian press reported Sunday.

Prosecutors on the Italian island have been investigating possible shipwreck and manslaughter charges after the Bayesian sank in a pre-dawn storm on August 19, killing British tech tycoon Mike Lynch, his daughter and five others.

"I monitored the weather conditions all evening" including wind that was coming in around 40 kilometres per hour (25 mph), Matthew Griffiths was quoted by news agency Ansa, which did not provide a source.

"I then immediately woke the captain who took charge of operations. He gave the order to wake the others," he said.

Captain James Cutfield, a 51-year-old New Zealand national, was one of 15 people who survived -- nine of the 10 crew members and six of the 12 passengers.

He has been the focus of the investigation along with engineer Tim Parker Eaton, who was in charge of the engine room that night, and Griffith, the crewman on lookout.

Cutfield confirmed he was woken by the lookout and had ordered "to inform the others because I didn't like the situation", he was quoted saying the Corriere della Sera newspaper.

The crew said the vessel then suddenly tilted and several crew members found themselves at sea.

"We managed to get back on board and tried to form a human chain to save those who made it to the deck," Griffith said.

He added that the captain was the first in the chain and he helped everyone.

Lynch, 59, had invited friends and family onto the boat to celebrate his recent acquittal in a huge US fraud case.

But the 56-metre (185-foot) yacht was struck by a storm as it was anchored off Porticello, near Palermo, and sank within minutes.

The bodies of Lynch, his 18-year-old daughter Hannah and friends were recovered over the subsequent days in a major search operation.

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Causes of death of two superyacht passengers killed when Mike Lynch’s £14m vessel sank in thunderstorm revealed

• Georgie English , Foreign News Reporter
• Published : 0:26, 3 Sep 2024
• Updated : 7:15, 3 Sep 2024
• Published : Invalid Date,

THE official causes of death for two victims of the Bayesian superyacht tragedy have been revealed.

The £14million vessel was caught up in a storm off the coast of northern Sicily on August 19, capsizing and sinking to the sea floor in mere minutes.

Autopsies carried out on couple Chris and Neda Morvillo confirmed they both died by drowning, sources said on Monday.

Officials found "no sign" of any other injuries which may have resulted in their deaths.

Autopsies on the remaining seven victims are set to be completed throughout the rest of the week as the judicial investigation into the tragedy continues.

The luxury superyacht was caught up in a horror storm last month which caused it to sink in the early hours of the morning.

read more in the Bayesian

Yacht captain ‘says he did everything to save passengers & abandoned no one’

Superyacht captain ‘to LEAVE Italy’ after staying silent with cops over wreck

Of the 22 onboard, 15 survived but tragically seven died including lawyer Chris and his wife Neda.

Brit billionaire  Mike Lynch  and his daughter Hannah were among those who died along with the yacht chef Recaldo Thomas.

Judy and Jonathon Bloomer also lost their lives.

It comes as the captain of the doomed Bayesian, James Cutfield, 51, is being investigated for manslaughter .

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Kiwi Cutfield, along with two other members of his crew, are being investigated by Italian authorities for culpable shipwreck and multiple manslaughter.

Prosecutors are probing ship engineer  Tim Parker-Eaton, from Clophill, Beds, and sailor Matthew Griffith, 22  under the same charges.

The investigation does not imply guilt or mean formal charges will be brought against any of the men.

Investigators are understood to be rifling through CCTV footage and photographs taken by locals on the night of the storm to understand why the boat sank so quickly. 

At a press conference at the Termini Imerese Courthouse on Saturday, Chief Prosecutor Ambrogio Cartosio said there may have been “behaviours that were not perfectly in order with regard to the responsibility everybody had.” 

His team will probe if hatches were left open, allowing water to flood in.

They will also look into whether the crew raised the alarm before escaping. 

He vowed to “discover how much they knew and to what extent all the people (passengers) were warned.”

Mr Cartosio added: “There could be in fact the question of homicide. But this is the beginning of the inquiry, we cannot exclude anything at all…We will establish each element’s (crew) responsibility.

"For me, it is probable that offences were committed — that it could be a case of manslaughter.”

Divers spent five days scouring the Bayesian wreck to retrieve the bodies of six missing passengers last month.

They found Mike Lynch and his four guests, Chris, Neda, Jonathan and Judy in the first cabin on the left.

Lynch’s  18-year-old daughter Hannah  was the last passenger to be discovered in the third cabin.

Officials said the victims had scrambled to reach air pockets in the yacht as it sank stern-first before rolling onto its right side on the seabed. 

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The CEO of the firm that built the Bayesian told The Sun how  crew error could be responsible  for the disaster aboard the "unsinkable" boat.

The survivors of the wreck, including Lynch’s wife Angela Bacares, 57, left Sicily in a private jet last Sunday.

Inside The Bayesian's final 16 minutes

By  Ellie Doughty , Foreign News Reporter

Data recovered from the Bayesian's Automatic Identification System (AIS) breaks down  exactly how it sank  in a painful minute-by-minute timeline.

At 3.50am on Monday August 19 the Bayesian began to shake "dangerously" during a fierce storm, Italian outlet  Corriere  revealed.

Just minutes later at 3.59am the boat's anchor gave way, with a source saying the data showed there was "no anchor left to hold".

After the ferocious weather ripped away the boat's mooring it was dragged some 358 metres through the water.

By 4am it had began to take on water and was plunged into a blackout, indicating that the waves had reached its generator or even engine room.

At 4.05am the  Bayesian fully disappeared  underneath the waves.

An emergency GPS signal was finally emitted at 4.06am to the coastguard station in Bari, a city nearby, alerting them that the vessel had sunk.

Early reports suggested the disaster struck around 5am local time off the coast of Porticello Harbour in Palermo, Sicily.

The new data pulled from the boat's AIS appears to suggest it happened an hour earlier at around 4am.

Some 15 of the 22 onboard were rescued, 11 of them scrambling onto an inflatable life raft that sprung up on the deck.

A smaller nearby boat - named Sir Robert Baden Powell - then helped take those people to shore.

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Divers uncover the 6th missing body after luxury superyacht sank in freak storm off Sicily. Here's what we know about the incident.

Rescue crews recovered the sixth and final missing body off the coast of Sicily, the Italian coast guard said Friday.

It's been five days since the Bayesian, a luxury superyacht, sank after it was caught in the middle of an unexpected and violent storm. Six passengers were reported missing at the time.

British tech magnate Mike Lynch, who seemed to have been hosting a celebration on the yacht after being acquitted of fraud charges in June, was one of those missing. His body was recovered on Thursday.

While Italian officials did not identify the last body, Lynch's 18-year-old daughter was the only person unaccounted for.

An investigation has been launched looking into the sinking. Naval marine experts said a boat like the Bayesian should have withstood the storm. Giovanni Costantino, the CEO of the Italian Sea Group, which owns the company that made the Bayesian, alleged to Reuters that the shipwreck was caused by "indescribable, unreasonable errors" made by the crew and not any design or construction issues.

What happened?

The Bayesian capsized about half a mile off the coast of Porticello, a small fishing village. There were 22 people on board — 12 passengers and 10 crew members. The City Council of Bagheria said in a statement that seven adults were taken to the emergency room following the rescue, but “it seems that none are in serious conditions.”

While crews searched for the remaining bodies, others are trying to confirm why the boat sank in the first place. According to a BBC report , a heavy storm hit the coast of Sicily and created waterspouts , which are tornadoes that form over water. The waterspout winds were so powerful that they broke the boat’s mast in half, causing the ship, which was anchored, to lose its balance and sink.

The U.K.’s Marine Accident Investigation Branch plans to send a team of four investigators to make a preliminary assessment of why the Bayesian sank and why people were still on board.

As the ship was going down, 15 people were able to make it to safety and were rescued by a nearby boat.

The crew on a Dutch-flagged vessel nearby noticed the yacht had disappeared and saw flares being set off in the sea. They went to help survivors before the Italian coast guard could arrive.

One British passenger, Charlotte Golunski, told reporters she kept her 1-year-old daughter alive by holding her up above the water until they got on a lifeboat.

The wreck was found around 164 feet beneath the water's surface. More than 400 people, including 28 specialist divers, were involved in the rescue efforts.

What to know about the Bayesian

Charter sites list the yacht’s weekly rent as $215,000, the Associated Press reported .

Boat International , a superyacht and luxury yacht guide, reported that the Bayesian had the tallest aluminum mast in the world at over 240 feet, making it one of the 50 largest sailing yachts in the world.

Who is Mike Lynch?

Lynch, 59, founded the software firm Autonomy and recently faced a legal battle with U.S.-based Hewlett-Packard after the tech company accused him of inflating Autonomy’s value in an $11 billion sale in 2011.

Lynch was acquitted of multiple fraud charges in June after a three-month trial, avoiding a potential 20-year jail sentence.

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How do you keep pilots and passengers of sea planes safe?

By Barbara Peterson / Hakai Magazine

Posted on Sep 6, 2024 8:00 AM EDT

22 minute read

This article was originally featured on  Hakai Magazine ,  an online publication about science and society in coastal ecosystems. Read more stories like this at  hakaimagazine.com .

It is half past noon on a cool November day on an island in the Pacific Ocean, and I am learning what it is like to drown.

First there’s the shock—the rush of water as I am plunged into the drink, flipped upside down, and submerged about a meter under the surface. I’m churned and spun around, I can’t see, and I have about a minute to get free before I lose consciousness.

In my disoriented state, I fumble for an exit I know is there, but it eludes me. I’m seized with the fear that no one is coming to my rescue, and I panic. I later learn that doctors have identified the point of no return at a mere 87 seconds after your last breath, when you reflexively open your mouth, aspirate water, and start to drown. At last, my fingers locate a door handle. I unbuckle my seatbelt and swim to safety.

If this had been a real seaplane emergency, instead of a simulation in a mock cockpit in a heated swimming pool, odds are I would be dead. Seventy percent of fatalities in aircraft that crash into water in Canada are caused not by impact but by drowning. That deadly statistic—from the country’s Transportation Safety Board (TSB)—has brought me and 10 others to this motel in Victoria, British Columbia, for “underwater egress training,” a sort of boot camp in how to escape a sinking plane or helicopter. Seaplanes are, by definition, aircraft that can use water as a runway for take offs and landings. Perhaps the most common seaplanes are floatplanes, which have pontoons. My classmates are professional pilots, often at the controls of floatplanes, along with one healthcare worker who travels often by floatplane to remote communities. As of March 2023, all commercial floatplane pilots are legally required to take the training every three years.

We are led by Bryan Webster, known in seaplane circles as “Bry the Dunker Guy,” a veteran pilot who has already trained close to 10,000 individuals whose jobs involve either piloting seaplanes or flying on them frequently. Webster mixes practical advice with these Houdini-style escapades. Calling this drill a dunking is a bit of an understatement; it’s more like waterboarding. Anyone taking this one-day course undergoes it multiple times, and repetition is key. The idea is that people can learn to extricate themselves—and perhaps a few others—from what would otherwise be a watery grave. Webster says that of 31 pilots who have taken his course and were subsequently in a floatplane crash in water, all survived—a 100 percent success rate. These survivors also rescued 31 passengers, for a total of 62 lives saved.

I’m here for the immersive experience as a journalist, and to make the drenching authentic I wear pants, a sweater, and loafers, just as I would if this were a real flight. And as in real life, my initial instinct is to do all the wrong things. “The first thing most people do if they are in a crash of any vehicle is unbuckle their seatbelt, right?” Webster asks us. Do that in a crippled seaplane, though, and you could hit your head, collide with other occupants, or get stuck before you have a chance to get out. The rule here is to follow a four-step process, which we’re required to memorize: grab a door handle, open the exit while grasping onto a point outside the plane, then release your belt and grab a life vest, and inflate it once you’ve safely exited.

For many of my classmates, the course is a refresher. They spend their waking hours flying pint-sized planes adorned with pontoons and names like Beaver, Otter, and Goose to far-flung locations: north to Port Hardy at the tip of Vancouver Island, over to remote sites on the BC mainland, or farther afield in the Yukon and the Northwest Territories. Their clients aren’t just tourists or “rich Americans going duck hunting,” as one pilot in the class joked. On any given day, seaplanes in Alaska and the Pacific Northwest ferry a breadth of clients to the places they need to go—from wealthy tourists going on remote hunting trips, to blue-collar workers heading to fish farms or logging camps, to scientists visiting remote marine labs, to people who live off the road system and are trying to reach medical care in a city. For the pilots who make such travel possible, crashing is more than theoretical: they often fly solo to inaccessible places, “secret locations far from civilization,” as writer Ann Patchett described in a  New Yorker  piece on flying seaplanes around Alaska. The allure of this rugged lifestyle is undeniable. But therein lies the paradox: the same attributes that lend the seaplane an aura of romance also highlights its shortcomings as a modern form of transportation.

“Half-boat and half-airplane, but inherently suboptimal as both,” is how Robert Erdos, a test pilot for the US Navy, once described the essence of the floatplane, which “demands the skills of both a mariner and an aviator.” Many operate in the bush, connecting remote or isolated communities, and some date back to the 1950s or 1960s, often lacking modern tools like GPS and autopilot technology. The risks come from the fact that they land on water, and that in the rugged landscapes they routinely traverse—featuring mountains and large bodies of water—weather is unpredictable, tidal and surf conditions fluctuate, and hazards hide just below the water’s surface. To add to the danger, some seaplanes are equipped with wheels so they can land on terra firma as well. Therein lies another threat: if the landing gear—the wheels—isn’t in the right position for the surface, there may be no warning. And if a plane with its landing gear set for terrain lands on water, it will instantly flip over and sink, since the gear hits before the pontoons, which are intended to smooth the landing, in turn throwing off the plane’s aerodynamics.

Despite all this, what buoys this sliver of the aviation world is a subculture of proud floatplane pilots. Pockets of them persist in Alaska, Northern Ontario, the Caribbean, and, increasingly, the Maldives, which is by some measures the busiest floatplane market in the world, and a more laid-back one (where references to “barefoot pilots” are taken literally). For North America, though, the Pacific Northwest is seaplane central: BC-based Harbour Air Seaplanes, which bills itself as the largest all-seaplane company in North America, with 40 aircraft, carries more than 450,000 passengers around the southern coast of British Columbia alone every year. And that’s just one of several floatplane operators in the region.

The Pacific Northwest’s practical and cultural connection with seaplanes is fitting, because it is home to the Boeing factory, a cradle of modern aviation and the progenitor of today’s seaplanes. More than a century ago, a tiny seaplane made its debut 120 kilometers southeast of where we’re learning to survive a crash into water.

In Seattle, Washington, on June 15, 1916, a young man named William Boeing hopped into a rickety winged contraption made of spruce wood, steel wire, and linen fabric. Docked at Lake Union, the machine looked like a First World War biplane with pontoons for landing on water. It wasn’t the first seaplane ever built, but it was Boeing’s first aircraft.

Only a few of these “B&W” floatplanes—named for Boeing and his partner, naval aviator Conrad Westervelt—were built (a replica hangs at Seattle’s Museum of Flight). The company eventually built bigger seaplanes that could carry cargo and larger payloads. Rivals, such as upstate New York’s Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Company, also cranked out hundreds of seaplanes for private owners and navies around the world.

At first, amphibious craft that could land on water or hard terrain offered obvious advantages. They were faster than ships, capable of flying 84 kilometers per hour, and, given the lack of airports, in the event of an emergency it was easier to make a forced landing on water.

Soon a far grander iteration of the seaplane debuted: the “flying boat,” a yacht with wings. By the late 1930s, one of these—the Pan Am Clipper—was ferrying upward of 74 travelers across oceans in style, with lounges, dining rooms, and 36 sleeping berths for the well-heeled. Because its fuselage acted like a boat hull, it could land in any sheltered bay. The Clippers were luxurious, though slow: the flight from San Francisco to Honolulu took 19 hours, compared with under six hours today.

The Second World War changed aviation for good. The military needed long runways, so modern airfields appeared around major population centers, along with radar and air traffic control. Overall, landing on a hard, flat runway, with the technology to manage planes coming and going, turned out to be easier and more convenient than relying on sheltered bays scattered along coastlines. When Pan Am retired its fleet of flying boats in 1946, which at its peak totaled 28, pilots were happy to bid them adieu. “I argued daily for eliminating all flying boats,” one veteran pilot is quoted as saying.

The observation resonates today. Investment has steadily poured into commercial aviation, with advances in safety that have saved countless lives. The humble floatplane, to more jaundiced observers, is seemingly frozen in a 1950s time warp. But that appeals to a certain kind of pilot, one who prefers the friendly skies with a dose of thrill.

“So, I’m 17, well into my flight training, and I go for a ride with a family friend in a Cessna 150. And this fellow, he loved aerobatics, he was a bit of a risk-taker.” This is how Bryan Webster opens the classroom portion of his training sessions, and with a setup like that, you know it can’t end well.

The time is the late 1970s and the setting the Fraser River, which flows into the Strait of Georgia near Vancouver and is known for stunning scenery, strong currents, and—we soon learn—some unpredictable hazards in the air above. As Webster recounts how his joyride to nowhere turned into a flight from hell, it’s a catalog of almost everything that can go wrong when flying a small plane.

“The sun is setting as we’re coming back, it’s a very large glow of orange, and we’re heading directly for it,” Webster says. That drastically limits forward visibility, a serious problem since many small crafts fly under what’s called “visual flight rules”—a fancy way of saying you must rely on your eyes and your judgment instead of on the instruments that commercial pilots use. “You see, we pilots, we often fly low,” he deadpans. “It is not wise to fly low into the setting sun.”

Minutes from landing, as the plane descended to just 30 meters above the river’s surface, Webster spotted a cluster of power lines right in front of them. “I yelled at the top of my lungs, ‘Lines!’” The pilot attempted an aerobatic stunt to avoid the hazard, but, Webster continues, “here’s the fatal error: it was high tide. I knew when I saw that that we were going to hit water.” The plane slammed nose-down into the river at a speed of more than 160 kilometers per hour, generating an impact of around 20 G, or 20 times the force of gravity. The crash blew out the front windshield, and muddy water flooded the cockpit. “[It was] like having a fire hose put right in your face,” he says. Both men were knocked unconscious.

Webster came to as the water hit his nostrils. His unconscious friend hung upside down from seatbelt straps, bleeding profusely from the top of his head. Both suffered “extreme bruising” from the force of the crash, Webster says, and he learned then that not all seatbelts are the same. The Cessna featured secure five-point military-style harnesses. While such belts are more common now than they were in the 1970s, only single-strap belts are still required. “And that [five-point harness] is the only reason we survived this,” he says. But a safer seatbelt does not protect a survivor from a common obstacle to overcome in a floatplane crash: doors that often jam on impact and reduce the number of exits .  Webster was lucky. The slam into the water blasted the doors off the cockpit. Webster got out, splashed over to the other side of the plane, dragged out his companion, put him in a chokehold, and swam to shore. The aircraft was totaled, but the pair was relatively unscathed.

Webster finished his training, got a license, and worked as a professional pilot for almost 20 years before he had another scare. One day in 1995, he briefly lost all engine power on one of his flights for a cargo airline. He was in a wheeled aircraft and landed safely at Vancouver Airport but wondered what he should have done had he crashed into the water. When he consulted his manual, he realized there was little useful information about what to do in that circumstance, which set him on a mission to raise awareness of how to survive a sinking plane. He launched his egress training courses in 1998.

By then, the dangers of seaplane travel had caught the attention of regulators in Canada, who were alarmed by the number of drownings in otherwise survivable crashes. A report from the TSB in 1994 concluded that most fatalities from accidents in water result from post-impact drownings, and those who did escape a sinking plane “experienced some difficulty in doing so.” The study also found that few occupants—even the pilots—took advantage of available shoulder harnesses, and without these restraints they were far more likely to be incapacitated by injuries and drown.

The TSB’s counterpart in the United States, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), has weighed in on the issue of seaplane safety several times, typically after a fatal accident. But the hard truth is that since most seaplanes typically can carry only a few people per flight, versus up 150 or more on an average narrow-body jet, there’s less impetus to prompt change if one does crash. That jibes with what insiders refer to as the “tombstone” philosophy in aviation safety policymaking, in which nothing happens until there are too many dead bodies to ignore.

In recent decades, though, several high-profile crashes have convinced aviation professionals that there’s more to be done to make seaplanes safer. In interviews, the experts I spoke with frequently referenced one of the worst seaplane crashes in Canadian history. The death toll was high, but it was the follow-up investigation that truly revealed the inadequacies of this form of travel.

It happened in November 2009, when a single-engine de Havilland Beaver, operated by Seair Seaplanes, crashed and sank in Lyall Harbour, off Saturna Island, between Vancouver Island and the BC mainland. A mother, the baby daughter she cradled on her lap, and four other passengers withstood the initial impact, only to drown because they were trapped inside the damaged cabin. The pilot and another passenger survived.

The tragedy shook the general public so thoroughly that the accident deeply undermined confidence in Canada’s floatplane industry. But what caused it? It was a classic chain of events seen often in aviation accidents, in which a series of seemingly unrelated errors line up in the worst possible way.

The TSB’s report detailed what went wrong: the plane was overloaded in the back end, making it more difficult to control. A strong wind propelled the plane toward a ridge, the pilot steered away, and the aircraft stalled. Unbeknownst to the pilot, the stall warning horn and lights weren’t working. The aircraft plunged into the water, and the seriously injured pilot couldn’t help passengers evacuate.

Thus began a prolonged back-and-forth between the TSB and Transport Canada over what should be required of the floatplane industry to prevent more loss of life. The investigation accelerated the push for egress training and a requirement that passengers wear lifejackets during the flight so they weren’t left groping for them in cold, dark waters after a crash. Both of those changes have taken effect in the last few years, over a decade after the Lyall Harbour crash.

But the vulnerability of the exits remains. The TSB investigation concluded that people aboard died because two of the four doors on the plane were jammed shut on impact. “Had all normal exits been usable or had there been other emergency exits, such as jettisonable windows, there would have been a greater chance of surviving the accident,” wrote TSB investigators.

Survivors’ families have since pushed for pop-out doors, a normal feature in many other airplane types. The TSB agreed, adding that to its list of recommended changes. But to become law, the recommendations must pass muster with Transport Canada, which, like the Federal Aviation Administration in the United States, also weighs other considerations, such as the economic impacts on the airline business. After consulting with experts, Transport Canada concluded that since planes would have to be redesigned and recertified, the cost of this recommendation was “too high” and did not justify the safety benefits.

Modernizing the fleet and regulations will go a long way toward protecting passengers and pilots—but no regulations can solve the deadliest problem in the Pacific Northwest: frigid water.

Wilderness guide Jenny Heap has firsthand experience with what happens when crash victims end up in a cold ocean. On the morning of September 30, 2016, Heap was kayaking solo in the San Juan Islands in Washington State. A heavy fog had descended over the region, but as she paddled near Lopez Island she noticed something odd in the distance. “I saw something bobbing on the surface, and I thought, ‘maybe it’s harbor seals’” she recalls. But then she heard someone yelling.

She had just stumbled on a seaplane crash.

There was no sign of the plane. When she reached the figures treading water, the tale came out: a Kenmore Air Beaver floatplane from Seattle had crashed just short of its destination on Lopez Island; the four people aboard—a pilot and three passengers—escaped but were disoriented. One man, the pilot, clung to a seat cushion. The others wore life jackets. Heap recognized the immediate danger of hypothermia: the cold water, about 10 ˚C, had sent the survivors into shock. In fact, they almost died before they were rescued by a coast guard vessel.

This accident barely attracted any notice at the time, since there were no fatalities. There was a brief probe in which it was determined that the pilot had been disoriented by the fog. But it highlighted a serious problem in floatplane safety that defies any simple solution: the inability to predict the weather and sea conditions.

“Unless you are in the Indian Ocean or some other tropical place, the water’s going to be cold,” says Gordon Giesbrecht, a retired University of Manitoba professor emeritus who is known as “Dr. Popsicle” for his studies of how to survive cold-water immersion emergencies—techniques he helped develop in a series of experiments using test subjects (including himself). He found that even when volunteers were dropped into water just above freezing—6 ˚C—hypothermia does not develop right away. It can take at least half an hour.

Giesbrecht came up with what he named the “1-10-1 Principle,” describing three critical phases of cold-water immersion. The first is cold shock, where you have one minute to stay calm and get control of your breathing. This is followed by a 10-minute phase, where you can still move and act to save yourself. And finally, hypothermia, a slow process that takes up to one hour to claim your consciousness. Knowing the phases may help delay its onset.

Webster teaches the phases and incorporates cold-water survival strategies into his training, emphasizing the urgency of huddling with fellow survivors and moving toward safety. But reality often plays out differently. In the 2016 Lopez Island crash, for example, the survivors were all close to shore. “But they had no idea where they were, because they were completely surrounded by a blanket of white fog,” said the survivors’ attorney. Had it not been for the chance encounter with a kayaker, their odds of survival would have been slim.

Despite the rare events that draw headlines, civil aviation is remarkably safe. Scheduled air travel is now enjoying its safest period in history, even with Boeing’s recent travails, due in large part to regulatory reforms and technological advances. In North America, the last major fatal accident on a commercial airline flight was in 2009, when a Continental commuter plane crashed outside of Buffalo, New York, killing all 49 aboard.

General aviation, which is a broader category of aviation, encompasses everything from sightseeing helicopters to small private planes. In Canada, while planes with floats have a higher fatality rate overall than planes on wheels, it’s tough to estimate accident rates, since seaplane operators are not required to report number of hours flown, and most operate for only six months a year. But hundreds of thousands of passengers take off every year in floatplanes and land safely.

Periodically, though, a string of mishaps will retrain the spotlight on seaplanes. In 2019, in a two-week period, three fatal seaplane crashes unfolded in quick succession in Alaska, killing a total of nine people and prompting the NTSB to issue a warning that seaplanes may no longer be a safe form of transport.

And then, on September 4, 2022, a de Havilland Canada Otter operated by Renton-based Friday Harbor Seaplanes abruptly plunged from the sky near Whidbey Island, Washington, killing all 10 people on board. Most crashes happen on takeoff and landing, but this accident occurred at cruising altitude, so there was no chance of survival, and no amount of egress training would have made any difference.

Although such accidents stoke the notion that seaplane travel is inherently risky, it’s still the only way to tie certain remote places together or connect them to the outside world. Plus, it’s a wonderful way to travel—as I learn the day before enduring my dunking at the hands of Bryan Webster.

It’s my first seaplane ride ever, and I’m grateful it wasn’t in the reverse order. I get to experience it as most fliers do, without thinking of all the things that can go wrong. I take off in clear skies from a dock on Seattle’s Lake Union for Victoria’s downtown harbor, in a 10-passenger Kenmore Air de Havilland Otter painted to resemble a killer whale. I’m on the milk run, a commuter service linking two city centers, and by cutting out the slog through commercial airports it’s the fastest route between the cities. For most of the one-hour flight, we’re barely above 600 meters, affording a close-up view of the scalloped coastline, with snowcapped mountains in the distance, and odd features like Dungeness Spit, a long, skinny sandbar that loops into the Juan de Fuca Strait from the Olympic Peninsula. I can understand why travelers gush about this experience.

I later learn that the plane I flew on was manufactured in 1954 (the cute paint job came a half-century later). Floatplanes can seem geriatric compared with commercial airline planes, but when this comes up in the egress training class, few of the pilots seem concerned. Several refer affectionately to flying the Grumman Goose, an aircraft that last rolled off the assembly line in the 1940s. Of the roughly 350 that were manufactured, 30 are still in service, including a number in Western Canada. Gord Jenkins, a seasoned commercial seaplane pilot in our class, says that “it’s not the age of the plane that matters, it’s how it is maintained.” And he would know—as a private pilot, he flies a Grumman Goose once owned by the Wall Street financier Robert Lehman, who in the 1940s used it to shuttle from his offices to his estate on Long Island. A California millionaire now owns the plane.

And though seaplanes are still manufactured, few observers expect the design to change drastically; the costs are just too high to justify the enormous investment required to overhaul an aircraft type that serves such a tiny niche. “Every few years you hear about some pretty good inventor coming up with some pretty good design for a new seaplane,” says Vance Hilderman, an aviation expert and CEO of AFuzion, an aerospace certification firm. “But the certification costs would be astronomical.” Although there is a futuristic all-electric “seaglider” in development in partnership with Alaska Airlines, and a few newer floatplane models, like the Caravan EX equipped with GPS and IFR (instrument flight rules), since older planes continue to function safely there’s less pressure to reinvent the wheel, he notes. Plus, Hilderman adds, many experts believe that since human error is a factor in many seaplane accidents, a better solution is to focus more on pilot training.

As Webster puts it, “You’ve always got to be on your game.” But it’s when the game puts you in the drink that you will really need the skills he pounds into us in this crash course in survival. While the atmosphere is at times jovial, there is a gnawing sense that this could be real someday. To survive really does take practice.

As an outside observer, whose chances of being in an underwater crash are exceedingly remote, I look back at my day in survival boot camp as both awe-inspiring and mortifying—especially after I fumble my way through another required underwater exercise in a bespoke tunnel meant to simulate an airplane cabin. I naively assume this will be the easier one, since I’m not upside down. Webster instructs us to descend into the water, swim forward into this contraption, feel your way to a door, open the handle, and slide out. But about 15 seconds in I have trouble finding a door, and with the clock ticking I flail around, hitting my fists against the faux side panels and ceiling. No longer able to hold my breath, I start ingesting water. Then, to my surprise—and that of the onlookers above—I free myself by blasting out through the flimsy top panel, which, in a real plane, would not be an option.

But perhaps if I were ever to be in an actual floatplane crash, whatever skills I gleaned from this ordeal would kick in. Months after I returned home, I connected with Tony McCormick, a Victoria-based marine safety entrepreneur who flies seaplanes as a means of commuting. He took his first egress training with Webster in 2006. “Of course, you never really believe you are going to need it,” he says. In 2015, in a freak accident, his tiny floatplane flipped over on Vancouver Island’s Lake Cowichan on a warm summer evening. It was harrowing. The force of the impact shattered the windshield, and water flooded the cockpit. In an instant, he says, he was upside down and almost three meters below the surface. “It could have been a failure of the pontoons, or an underwater hazard,” he says. “I will never know. But what I do know is the main reason I am alive and able to tell this story is that my training came back to me and overrode my urge to panic.”

Are seaplanes safe? Yes, especially if pilots take egress training and passengers know what to expect, ask the right questions, have adequate harnesses, and wear life vests. I’ll fly in a seaplane again, especially since I now know what to do if things don’t go well.

This article first appeared in  Hakai Magazine  and is republished here with permission.

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