A multi-aircraft search and rescue (SAR) mission in Hudson Bay ended Jan. 9, with the successful recovery of two Inuit hunters from an ice floe – along with the pilot of a privately-operated helicopter that was originally chartered for the pickup.


The hunters, a man and his teenage son from Arviat, Nunavut, were reported overdue the night before, at which point the Royal Canadian Air Force’s (RCAF’s) SAR machinery went into high gear.

Two aircraft were initially tasked: a Lockheed Martin C-130 Hercules from 435 Transport and Rescue Squadron at Canadian Forces Base Winnipeg and an AgustaWestland CH-149 Cormorant helicopter from 413 Transport and Rescue Squadron at CFB Greenwood, N.S.

Maj. Isabelle Robitaille, a public affairs officer at 1 Canadian Air Division in Winnipeg, the RCAF operational headquarters, told Canadian Skies shortly after the mission had been completed that the Cormorant was recalled while still en route as closer assets were deployed.

When the first Hercules crew ran out of time in the gathering darkness, a second was sent from CFB Trenton, Ont., where a Joint Rescue Coordination Centre is responsible for covering the entire Northwest Territories and most of Nunavut as well as the three prairie provinces, Ontario and Western Quebec – an area of some 11 million square kilometres, approximately 30 per cent of which is water.

With the second Hercules flying “top cover” but unable to effect a rescue after the hunters were found, a Bell 206B JetRanger owned by Custom Helicopters Ltd. of Winnipeg was dispatched from its northern operating base in Gillam, Man., a relatively short distance from the rescue scene.


However, shortly after the JetRanger touched down, the floe began breaking up under it, but the hunters managed to get the pilot out of the helicopter, which apparently then stabilized partly in the water.

All this had been monitored from the Hercules, from which two SAR technicians parachuted onto the ice. A short time later, a CH-146 Griffon helicopter from CFB Cold Lake, Alta., was able to hoist the hunters, the JetRanger pilot and the two SAR techs to safety before returning to base.