'You have to get out or you're gonna die': surviving sealer
Speaking at an emotional news conference Wednesday in the Îles de la Madeleine, Claude Déraspe and Bruno Pierre Bourque said icy water filled the L'Acadien II seconds after it flipped on its side.
The sealing trawler was being towed by a coast guard icebreaker early Saturday after it lost its steering capacity north of Cape Breton.
The bodies of three of the dead sealers — boat captain Bruno Bourque (father of Bruno Pierre Bourque), Gilles Leblanc and Marc-André Déraspe (no relation to Claude Déraspe) — were found. The body of a fourth sealer, Carl Aucoin, is still missing.
Bruno Pierre Bourque said he was at the steering wheel when L'Acadien II hit a chunk of ice and tipped over. His father, who he called his "friend and idol," had been steering but went to bed earlier that night.
"Everything happened very quickly, about 15 seconds," he said, his hands trembling as he paused for a sip of water.
"I found myself under the ship, under water. I opened my eyes and I decided I wasn't going to stay there. That's when I stopped knowing what was going on and managed to get out from under the ship."
Déraspe, who had gone to the sleeping quarters shortly before the ship overturned, said he started yelling at the other crew members to wake up when he realized what was happening.
Déraspe said the water pressure sucked off most of his clothing when he tried to open the door. As the water rose up to his neck, he took a deep breath and tried not to panic.
"I said to myself, 'You have to get out or you're gonna die.' I started struggling to find the door," he said.
Déraspe said he managed to kick out a small window and push away a piece of ice. He swam to the surface and got up onto a larger piece of ice.
"I was thinking if I died, at least my body would be found," he said.
Divers searched water
Wayne Dickson, the captain of the nearby Madelinot War Lord, said he radioed the icebreaker as soon as he realized the L'Acadien II was going to tip over. He said his crew hauled the two survivors on board and was continuing to search for others when the icebreaker switched off its large spotlight.
He said two divers arrived on the scene, rappelling down to the water from a Cormorant helicopter. Two more arrived later. They found three bodies, but failed to find the fourth.
"I feel so sorry for those guys, that we couldn’t save them all," said Dickson, his voice faltering.
"Right now as I think about it, I don't think the search was actually thorough enough. They should have gone down and did a better search at the end of it."
One of the divers volunteered to make a second dive to find the one remaining body, but her supervisor rejected the request, said Dickson.
He and his crew advised the Sir William Alexander to hook the overturned L'Acadien II to the icebreaker's boom in hopes they could lift it up and find more survivors.
"They didn't seem to know what to do," he said. "I don't know if they were untrained in that specific situation."
Public mourning at chapel
Dickson said his crewmembers and the two survivors were told they would be taken to North Sydney, but simply wanted to go home. A boat from their home port in the Îles de la Madeleine came out to get them.
"Our friends here from the [Magdalen Islands] came through the ice and picked us up so we could go back," said Dickson, who struggled to compose himself as Déraspe reached over to pat his back.
The three bodies pulled out of the capsized boat could arrive in the sealers' home community of Îles de la Madeleine as early as Tuesday night if the weather clears enough to let flights land.
Îles de la Madeleine Mayor Joel Arseneau said the municipal chapel would be open to the entire community on Friday for public mourning. A private funeral will take place at a local church on Saturday afternoon.
Bourque appealed for privacy, saying his family can't return to their home because media are camped outside and call the house all day.
Ship to search for body
Arseneau also said federal Fisheries Minister Loyola Hearn on Wednesday ordered the coast guard ship Terry Fox to carry out a full search of the scene, where the L'Acadien II remains floating upside down.
"The minister mentioned it is not to leave the area until they find the missing body," he said. If they conclude it is impossible to find the body, they will first notify the family, he said. The family of the missing sealer said it learned the earlier search had been called off in a news report.
The federal safety agency, RCMP and Canadian Coast Guard are all conducting investigations.
An RCMP spokesman said that while a criminal negligence investigation could be sparked by new information, it appears the incident was simply an "unfortunate accident" and criminal charges are not expected.
A Transport Safety Board investigator has said two crew members on the icebreaker were monitoring the operation when the small trawler capsized, contradicting reports by two survivors and a witness that they saw no one at the ship's stern.
However, a Transportation Safety Board official has told CBC News that there was a change of shift underway when the accident happened, so it is possible no one was on the stern.