N.L. ferries lacking in data recorders

N.L. ferries lacking in data recorders
Minister vows review after report on Queen of the North sinking
Last Updated: Friday, March 14, 2008 | 8:54 AM NT
CBC News

Only one of Newfoundland and Labrador's provincially owned ferries is equipped with a device the Transportation Safety Board said should be mandatory, and Transportation Minister Dianne Whalen said Thursday that's something she's going to look into.

The board released its report into the sinking of the Queen of the North in British Columbia this week, recommending that Transport Canada make voyage data recorders, devices that record speed, heading and crew radio transmissions, mandatory on all passenger ferries over 500 tonnes.

The board said the recorders can contain crucial information for investigators if something goes wrong. The Queen of the North, which ran aground and sank in March 2006 off the B.C. coast, did not have a recorder.

The MV Flanders has a voyage data recorder, and according to the recommendation from the Transportation Safety Board, so should seven of the other vessels in the provincial fleet.

Whalen said the provincial government will review the situation.

"We just put in a new marine division and a new assistant deputy minister, and he's been tasked to enhance the safety regulations in regards to our ferries," Whalen told CBC News. "So we're open to enhance the safety regulations where possible."

Meanwhile, Marine Atlantic, the Crown corporation that operates the Gulf ferry service from Newfoundland to Cape Breton, N.S., does have data recorders on the passenger vessels the Smallwood and the Caribou.

Tara Laing, spokeswoman for the corporation, said even though the recorders are not mandatory, the ferry service installed them for several reasons.

"One is to aid in an investigation should anything happen on one of our vessels," Laing told CBC News. "As well as an instructional tool."

The recorders have been installed on all new passenger ships in Canada since 2002.

Rutter Technologies, of St. John's, is one of the world's leading makers of voyage data recorders.