Cockpit voice recorder of Latitude Air Ambulance recovered after fatal crash off Massachusetts
Why It MattersAir ambulance flights over open water leave investigators dependent on physically recovering recorders and wreckage, so the timeline for explaining an in-flight emergency is set largely by the retrieval operation.
What happened
The Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) said in an update on Monday that the cockpit voice recorder of the Hamilton-based Latitude Air Ambulance aircraft has been recovered, along with the cockpit. The aircraft crashed in early October and six people were killed.
The flight left Bermuda on Oct. 3 carrying four Canadians and two Bermudians. The crew reported electrical difficulties while approaching Boston. The aircraft then descended rapidly, and contact with air traffic control was lost south of Nantucket, the agency said.
The TSB said the cockpit and recorder will be moved to its engineering laboratory in Ottawa for further examination. It said it will provide further updates as the investigation continues and more information becomes available.
Last month, TSB media relations co-ordinator Liam MacDonald described the aircraft's cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder as "a key element to determining what happened." Monday's update did not mention the flight data recorder.
The four crew members, all living in southern Ontario and employed by Ontario-based Latitude Air Ambulance, were Philip Gregory Childerhose, Thomas Henry Farquhar, Sarah Jane Paton and Jolene Beth Weir. The passengers were Marilyn Lavonne Bean, 66, and her son, Sergio Wayne Lottimore, 41.
Industry impact & what to watch
Medical transport flights routinely cover long stretches of open water between islands and the mainland, and that geography shapes how any investigation unfolds. When an aircraft goes down at sea, the recorders and the cockpit section become the main route to establishing what the crew experienced, which is why the TSB has treated their recovery as a milestone worth announcing on its own.
The sequence the TSB has described, an electrical problem reported on approach followed by a rapid descent and loss of contact, points investigators toward the aircraft's systems and the crew's handling of them. Cause remains under investigation, and nothing in the update assigns one.
The next marker is the laboratory work in Ottawa, where the cockpit and the voice recorder are to be examined. The flight data recorder is the other item to follow, since the TSB has called both recorders key and has so far reported recovery of only one.
