*** Couple Acuse Searchers of Calling Off Search Prematurely ***

Vancouver Island, B.C.
August 25th, 1996:
From: Martin Colwell sarinfo@mindlink.bc.ca

Brian Johnson, 48, and his wife, Sheila Patterson, 40 have complained that
rescue offcials left them for dead after finding the wreckage of their
float plane in Gaultheria Lake, on Vancouver Island, British Columbia.
Their plane crashed into the lake when Brian Johnson, the pilot, misjudged
the height to its dark, glassy surface while attempting a landing. The
couple managed to escape from the sinking aircraft and used its flotation
cushions to help them swim to shore.

Johnson and Patterson decided to leave the crash site to attempt an eight
hour bushwack to a lagoon on the coast where they expected that better
weather conditions, improved visibility and recreational boat traffic
would make them easier to be found. They assumed that their ELT would
not function as it was submerged under the water of the lake.

442 Squadron were despatched by the British Columbia Rescue Coordination
Centre and found the crash site within three hours on that Tuesday
afternoon, the 20th August. Returning to search the area the next day they
found no bodies or other signs of the couple on the shore and the search
was handed over to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) as a missing
person incident. Friends of the couple were notified that the couple,
parents of three young children, were presumed to be dead and obituray
notices were prepared.

Three days later,at 10.20am on Friday morning, the RCMP and the local
coroner flew to the crash site by helicopter to investigate the presumed
cause of death.. On the flight in they spotted the stranded couple as
Johnson waved a blue tarp at them as he ran along the shore of the lagoon.
They had also drawn a large 'SOS' in the sand.

The couple were quickly evacuated and were soon united with their family
and friends, who then withdrew the obituray notices they had prepared.

Later the couple accused search & rescue officials of presuming them to
be dead and of calling off the search too early. A spokesman for the
Rescue Coordination Centre stated that all normal procedures were
followed and if the couple had stayed at the crashsite they would have
been rescued within two or three hours. Provincial Emergency Program
officials and local SAR Managers also stated that the couple should
probably have stayed with the downed aircraft for at least the first
24 hours and then should then have left clear signs of their direction
of travel when they travelled away from the crash site. The government
has promised a full investigation into the handling of the search
incident.

Sunday September 1st:

Johnson and Patterson have recently aplogised to the searchers for their
complaints and have recognised that they should have followed the normal
protocol of staying near their downed aircraft, or at least indicated
their direction of travel, before leaving the crash site. The Rescue
Coordination Center in Victoria also concluded that they called of their
search too quickly and have offered the couple and their friends "A
sincere and heartfelt apology."

The incident has prompted a number of policy changes at the centre. In
future controllers will check with each other before changing the status
of the search to a missing person case (i.e. a police investigation)
"whenever there is the prospect for survivors". The rescue-centre
commander will also sign-off on all cases before they are handed over to
the police as missing person files.

Submitted by: Martin Colwell Lions Bay Search & Rescue

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