Coal Harbour seaplane collision has similarities to 1999 accident

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This past weekend’s seaplane collision in Coal Harbour was the first in a quarter century, according to a database of investigations from the Transportation Safety Board of Canada.

In 1999, a boat carrying two tourists was struck by a float plane arriving from Victoria as it tried to land. The tourists were injured and one was hospitalized with broken ribs and a collapsed lung. No float plane passengers were injured.

On Saturday, a Harbour Air seaplane collided with a pleasure boat as it was taking off just before 1 p.m. Vancouver Fire Rescue Services said two people on the boat were hospitalized, but no further details on their condition were provided.

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Harbour Air said there were five passengers on board the plane that collided with the boat.

“Upon takeoff, while operating a scenic tour with five passengers onboard, our aircraft came into contact with a boat. All five passengers on the aircraft and the pilot are uninjured and safe,” the statement read.

Both Saturday’s collision and the one in 1999 occurred in a similar area of the harbour, in the waters between Canada Place and Stanley Park. The area, referred to as “Area Alpha,” is one of three takeoff and landing zones for seaplanes in Vancouver Harbour.

Area Alpha is “absolutely” the busiest of the three zones, said Randy Hanna, founder of Nanaimo-based Pacific Seaplanes.

There are between 60,000 and 70,000 seaplane takeoffs and landings each year in Vancouver Harbour and another 25,000 to 30,000 aircraft enter the airspace, according to a 2019 article on Harbour Air’s website.

In the 1999 collision, the float plane pilot had received clearance to land from the control tower, which is located at the top of a highrise building at the foot of Granville Street. The control room has a 360-degree view and sits about 465 feet above sea level, making it the highest air traffic control room in the world.

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Despite this, the single controller who was working at the time did not see the boat when scanning the area before clearing the plane for landing.

“Lighting contrast around Canada Place (areas of shadow and bright sunlight) may have degraded his ability to distinguish the boat,” the TSB report read. “It is also possible that the boat was shielded from his field of view by the stern of the large cruise ship moored at Canada Place.”

These days, the control tower is typically staffed by four controllers during the summer’s busiest days, according to Harbour Air’s website.

Hanna, who has flown seaplanes in and out of Vancouver Harbour “thousands” of times, said he was confident today’s controllers were highly experienced and well-trained.

Hanna said when it comes to boat and other marine vessels — which include seaplanes until they take flight — collision regulations clearly state that “when something is on your right, you give way.“

Nav Canada, a private not-for-profit corporation, operates Canada’s air-traffic control and is “responsible for safe coordination and the efficient movement of aircraft … including flight paths and airways used by airlines,” according to its website.

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Vanessa Adams, Nav Canada’s manager of government and media relations, refused Sunday to answer Postmedia’s questions about how traffic is managed between boats and seaplanes in the harbour, referring all questions to the Transportation Safety Board.

A spokesperson from the TSB said it is “too early to say what the causal and contributing factors are,” but that investigators were on scene Sunday and have begun interviewing witnesses.

Both the boat and the plane involved in the crash have been recovered, the spokesperson said.

The only other B.C.-based collision in the database involving boats and seaplanes happened in 2021 when an aircraft operated by Tofino Air collided with a water taxi in Tofino Harbour.

Within two-and-a-half minutes of the collision, the seaplane “was inverted with just the floats above the surface of the water,” the report read.

Five passengers and the pilot escaped safely from the plane. All six, along with one passenger on the water taxi, suffered minor injuries.

The TSB spokesperson said that over the next few days investigators will “examine the wreckage, continue gathering information, and conduct more interviews.”

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Currently, there is no timeline for when a report on Saturday’s collision could be released.

With files from Douglas Quan and Tiffany Crawford

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