Charline Giffard Ian McQuinn

Wednesday, July 26th, 1995 - late afternoonFlying in a chartered, 9-seater Piper Navaho between Blanc-Sablon and Rimouski, Quebec over the Gulf of St-Lawrence. Onboard were one pilot, one co-pilot, five passengers.

Pilote: Joachim GausachCo-pilot: Thomas Mrozinscki

Five Passengers:Mike HammillPhilippe SchwabAlain FrechetIan McQuinnJean-Paul Lussiaà-Berdou (a last minute add-on)

Forecast: cloudy, warm, light winds with scattered thunderstorms

At around 5:30, the trip was two thirds done. One of the two motors suddenly failed and started to smoke. The plane could fly with only one motor, so the pilot decided to hold his course toward Rimouski even though the airport at Sept-Iles was closer. Rimouski was one hour away.

The pilot was young and inexperienced. He did not feather the propeller of the failed motor because he thought the motor still had power. That caused the plane to lose altitude and air speed.

At one point, it became clear that the plane was going to ditch into the sea.

The water in the Gulf of St. Lawrence is cold. There were no life jackets on board. The passengers started to put on as many layers of clothing as possible as the water was getting closer and closer.

It was very quiet in the plane. Everyone realized that this was serious and was deep in his thoughts. There was nothing else to do. The water was still getting closer. The waves, which we had hardly noticed before, were now all around them. The pilot said to assume the position, our heads on our laps, gripping our legs tightly. It was very quiet, even with the sound of the engine that was still running …

And than all hell broke loose. The plane clipped its tail on the water, and nose-dived to a violent stop.

The baggage in the back was hurled through the cabin. Water immediately gushed in through the split fuselage. The plane was sinking.

Get out! The rear passenger door was gone. Thanks for that! One by one they jumped onto the port wing. But the wing was sinking. Help the others out. Quickly, the plane was sinking. No point in standing on the wing. It was going fast.

Everyone was swimming now, in the cold waters of the Gulf. Swim away from the plane! She’s going down. She’s gone.

The silence was deep, like the waters below them.

Everyone managed to get out before the plane sank into a thousand feet of water. Seven people, swimming in the middle of nowhere. There were thunderstorms all around them, but it was strangely calm where they were.

The pilots had time to send a MAYDAY and to give their geographical position before ditching. The co-pilot was trying to be optimistic, but the others weren’t so sure. As marine scientists, they all had had sea emergency training and knew that their chances of survival in that situation were close to nil. Even though they had radioed their position, in a short time they will have drifted away in the currents of the Anticosti Gyre.

All the while the sun was setting and the cold would take its toll. How long could they tread water anyway?

There was time for a few jokes. What else were they to do?“What are you looking for Mike?” “A seal. I heard someone was once saved by a seal”. “But you’re a seal biologist, Mike. After all the seals you’ve shot, you’re last on their list!”

Joachim the pilot had not been able to put on warm clothing like the others while the plane was going down, as he was too busy piloting. At one point, he started to lose energy, and maybe hope and disappeared below the water. The others could only see his white pilot’s shirt deep under the water. Everyone thought that that was it for him. He was drowning.

What to do? Yes, we must go for him! Yes, we must!

But all of a sudden, out of nowhere, Joachim rose to the surface like a cork, as if an external force pulled him up, as if a giant hand reached down and brought him back.

The MAYDAY had been heard by a pilot making his approach to Sept-Iles airport. When he heard the MAYDAY he flew to the coordinates, but the currents had carried the swimmers away. They were no longer there. So the pilot started a spiral search pattern around the position.

Seven heads floating on the surface of the sea appear smaller that a needle's head from the sky. So how much hope was there that he would see them, really?

The swimmers saw the aircraft going round and around. By then they had been swimming for half an hour already. The cold and fatigue were more and more troublesome. Only the adrenaline was keeping them going. When the plane flew over them, they thought that if he doesn't see them on this pass, that was the end of it.

But good luck does follow bad. The pilot saw the seven floating heads when he passed over them, no small miracle. He changed direction suddenly, to tell them that he saw them.

But time was running out. How long could they survive swimming in the cold water, and what could an airplane do? Even though the pilot had found them, he could not rescue them. There was nothing he could do other than send another MAYDAY with the right position. That was what he did and he remained in the air over them until more help could arrive.

On shore, in Sept-Iles, a manager of a helicopter company also heard the MAYDAY. By chance, a helicopter pilot arrived at the company office to chat with the manager. The manager tells him about the MAYDAY. So they both jump in a helicopter and fly to the rescue. Before leaving they throw in a life raft that they had just bought the week before.

The swimmers are sensing desperation. The light was growing dim and the fatigue was slowly winning. But what’s that on the horizon? A reflection? No, a light - a spot light. It’s a helicopter flying low to the sea. It’s a helicopter!

They arrived within minutes and dropped them the life raft, opening it with a cord. The raft opened but landed upside down, so the swimmers had to right it. They all crawled in, all seven of them, safe and sound. Though the cold was now hitting hard and several start to shiver, the air was jubilant.

Another 15 minutes had passed between the time the aircraft saw them and when they got into the raft. The seven survived swimming and drifting in the Gulf of St-Lawrence for 45 minutes.

The helicopter went back to shore to exchange the manager for a licensed co-pilot because now the work begins for them. They would have to pull the survivors from the life raft with a helicopter without floaters, so they would have to put all their chances on their side.

At least all seven survivors were in the raft now. It was time to rest and to try to get warm. Some were suffering from hypothermia but it didn’t really matter.

The helicopter soon came back with a co-pilot, or it seemed like no time at all. The helicopter pilot lowered his craft to about 4 feet from the water above the raft. The co-pilot stood on the runner ready to haul in the first survivor as they stood up in the raft. These were very risky maneuvers. The helicopter did not have floating runners and the pilot had to compensate for the addition of 150-200 lbs as the co-pilot pulled them up onboard. One false move by the pilot would spell disaster.

The co-pilot was the man for the situation. “He looked like he came straight from the Vietnam War”, Ian says. He was bare armed, with his cap on backwards and had a look of determination that would silence a bull.

They could only take 3 survivers on this trip because of the capacity of the helicopter. They flew the first three to shore and came back with a bigger helicopter to get the other four. It was dark before they last trip arrived on solid ground.

Back on earth, they opened a store at the mall to get everyone dry clothes. Then they all went to a bar and drank a bottle of cognac, giving rounds to everyone they met. That was close. In fact, how had they survived?

Here are some of the elements of “luck” that were in place for them that day that allowed them to survive.

1.The pilot ditched the plane without anyone getting hurt

2.The passenger door and the front window were ripped off on impact, enabling a rapid escape from a rapidly sinking plane

3.Everyone knew how to swim, and for 45 minutes

4.Although very cold at 14°C, the water temperature was abnormally warm for that area, normally at 10°C

5.The sea was calm where they were, although there were thunderstorms all around

6.They crashed at the end of the day, but before dark

7.The rescue aircraft just happened to be coming in to land at Sept-Iles when the pilot heard the MAYDAY

8.The recue aircraft pilot found them bobbing in the middle of the sea, without any rescue equipment, far from their radioed position, against all odds

9.The helicopter manager just happened to hear the MAYDAY

10.The helicopter pilot had just arrived at the airport on an incoming flight, just happened to stop by the office and just happened to be an excellent pilot

11.The helicopter company just bought the life raft the week before

If only one of those elements had not been there that day, some or all of them would have surely perished.

Addendum:

July 26 is Ste-Anne’s day, the patron Saint of the shipwrecked.

Joachim, the name of the fateful pilot, was also the name of Ste-Anne’s husband. Joachim was the one who was beginning to drown, when he was plucked from depths and found the strength to continue.

Later that summer on vacation, Ian climbed Cap-Brule on the Saguenay River, where there was a statue of Ste-Anne. On the Cap, beside the statue, Ian met a colleague, Claude Desmeules, the brother of the helicopter pilot, who rescued him.

In Quebec the headlines read “Les Miracules”, the Blessed.

Vancouver, BC:

When I was 18 years old, I spent the summer in Vancouver, BC to work for a French organization. I worked for a woman named Diane Codere originally from Quebec.

One day, the phone rang in the office, and as the receptionist, I answered the call. There was a man on the phone speaking with a nervous tone of voice. He was asking for Diane. That man was Mike Hammill, a well-known marine mammal researcher in Canada. He was calling Diane, because he was best friends with her husband Tom Smith, another marine mammal researcher based in BC. He wanted to let them know that he had just survived a plane crash.

The following year, I was watching a TV show about people who had a near-death experience. My neighbor’s niece was talking. She was a psychologist specialized in post-traumatic

intervention, who herself has survived a plane crash. On that show there are two survivors of the plane crash, Philippe Schwab and Ian McQuinn. They talked about their experience.

In 2002, I got a job in the research institute where Mike Hammill, Phillip Schwab and Ian McQuinn work. I meet all of them at one point without remembering any of this. I became friends with Ian and asked him one day if he knew Tom Smith, my former employer Diane Codere’s husband. He said yes, and that he was a good friend of Mike Hammill’s. Little did I know that that phone call in Vancouver would come full circle. It seems that there was no end to the strange connections of this story.

Finally in 2004, Ian and I got married. I guess it was fate.

This was just one of the many unlikely-to-happen stories of Ian’s life.