The Canadian Coast Guard’s Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm BO105 S was being flown between 23 and 39 ft above the M’Clure Strait in the Canadian Arctic on a 2013 ice-measuring mission when, investigators believe, the pilot “experienced a lack of the visual cues required to judge altitude” and the helicopter descended into the freezing water.
The pilot and his two passengers — a scientist and the master of the Coast Guard ship serving as the helicopter’s operating base — evacuated before the helicopter sank upside down in 458-m (1,503-ft) deep water but drowned before rescuers arrived less than an hour and a half later.
The Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB), in its final report on the Sept. 9, 2013, accident, said that although its investigation was hampered by the helicopter’s lack of a cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder, investigators nevertheless determined that there was a “strong probability” that the pilot lost visual cues to altitude, poss…
