The front page of today’s Vancouver Province offers up one of those headlines destined to send a CEO running for the Maalox bottle, not to mention look for the PR department with increased urgency.
With huge type right there on page one and blaring out from the newsstands of the province, is the declaration that B. C. Ferries had ordered the destruction of documents related to the Queen of the North. Documents destroyed just five days after the ill fated ferry sank to the bottom off of Gil Island.
And while B. C. Ferries isn’t saying much about the controversy, what they have suggested thus far is, that there is nothing out of the ordinary for a company to destroy the operational manuals and such of a vessel that is no longer in the fleet. Which probably makes some sense as far as operational concerns go, but one would think that if nothing else their timing is rather unfortunate, a wiser strategy might have been to hold onto any documentation about the vessel until all issues regarding the vessels sinking have been laid to rest.
While an investigation was still underway, the Ferry Corporation ordered the destruction of the documents, orders traced by the Province with e mails and such reported as part of the story. The order to destroy the documents came on the same day that the Corporations safety director Darrin Boland quit his job, which will no doubt raise more questions about his well documented concerns on safety.
With huge type right there on page one and blaring out from the newsstands of the province, is the declaration that B. C. Ferries had ordered the destruction of documents related to the Queen of the North. Documents destroyed just five days after the ill fated ferry sank to the bottom off of Gil Island.
And while B. C. Ferries isn’t saying much about the controversy, what they have suggested thus far is, that there is nothing out of the ordinary for a company to destroy the operational manuals and such of a vessel that is no longer in the fleet. Which probably makes some sense as far as operational concerns go, but one would think that if nothing else their timing is rather unfortunate, a wiser strategy might have been to hold onto any documentation about the vessel until all issues regarding the vessels sinking have been laid to rest.
While an investigation was still underway, the Ferry Corporation ordered the destruction of the documents, orders traced by the Province with e mails and such reported as part of the story. The order to destroy the documents came on the same day that the Corporations safety director Darrin Boland quit his job, which will no doubt raise more questions about his well documented concerns on safety.
While not quite a smoking gun destined to feed conspiracy buffs for years, it is still not the kind of story that breeds much confidence in the Ferry Corporation at the moment and casts suspicions their way, when they can least afford to have that happen.
If nothing else, it tends to show a Corporation (and a Government) that continues to mishandle that tragedy of March, a situation that will only feed the calls for a full scale inquiry into the state of the Ferry Service in the province.
B.C. Ferries ordered staff to 'remove and destroy' records
Company refuses to explain its purge of documents containing performance details and instructions for the operation of the ill-fated ferry
Christina Montgomery
The Province
Thursday, December 14, 2006
Five days after the March 22 sinking of the Queen of the North, B.C. Ferries ordered records specific to the vessel's operation destroyed.
The company has refused to answer questions about its actions, raising concerns about the timing of the destruction and whether information was irretrievably lost.
Two months ago, the company also ordered crewing and human-resources manuals that applied to the entire fleet destroyed and deleted from its computer system.
E-mails obtained by The Province say the company intended to archive its master copy of the sunken ferry's "vessel-specific" manual, which outlined details of the vessel's performance capabilities and how the vessel should be operated.
In the case of the fleetwide manuals, both were completely deleted from the electronic records and, as of this week, remained deleted.
B.C. Ferries did not respond to Province questions about why it destroyed copies of the North's vessel-specific manual, whether a master copy was archived and if so, what it contained, or if the copies it ordered destroyed contained identical material. It would not say why the field copies were ordered destroyed rather than sent back to head office.
It also refused to say why it deleted the two fleetwide manuals and what will replace them, or when.
RCMP Cpl. Pierre Lemaitre said police would not comment because an investigation of the sinking by the major-crimes division is under way.
Transportation Safety Board spokesman John Cottreau said its investigators obtained all information and records they sought.
Without referring specifically to B.C. Ferries' actions, legal experts told The Province that in general, destruction of records after an accident could represent anything from sound litigation practice in which material is centralized and controlled for a legal defence to an attempt to expunge unhelpful documents. All said that material is normally collected and examined rather than destroyed in the field.
Tony Sheppard, a University of B.C. law professor and author of a legal text on evidence, said, without reference to B.C. Ferries, that "in a general way, destruction of evidence after an event, or any sort of mishap, could lead to an adverse inference being drawn."
Faced with acts of destruction known legally as "spoliation," courts may make an inference that the documents ran contrary to, or failed to support, the party's case, Sheppard said.
"That inference may be drawn. It doesn't have to be, but it may."
Some employees were apparently unwilling to carry out the March destruction order; The Province has obtained a copy of the North's
vessel-specific manual that survived.
Paper copies of the broader crewing and human-resources manuals printed before they were deleted from the system in October were also obtained.
The books that were ordered destroyed on March 27 -- at least three copies of the vessel-specific manual -- contained performance details about the ill-fated ferry and instructions for operations particular to it. Each ferry in the fleet has a similar manual.
Among e-mails obtained by The Province is a March 27 note from Bohdan Jarisz, supervisor of the documentation department, written to three employees and copied to two others.
It reads: "Dear Manual Holders: As per Chris Clack's direction, please remove and destroy the 'Queen of the North' vessel-specific manual immediately."
Clack was manager of operational and safety audits at the time.
The e-mail was sent on the same day that Darin Bowland, the director of safety, quit. After he left B.C. Ferries, Bowland, who had been assigned to investigate the sinking, said the company had interfered with his efforts. Company president David Hahn later denied the charge.
The March 27 e-mail goes on to detail where the copies of the manual were located. It also says that Jarisz's department will "retain and archive the master copy."
The note was addressed to John Constable, then the engineering superintendent responsible for northern ferries, to Edward Dahlgren, then superintendent for the North Coast, and to Annalise Sekyer, Bowland's administrative assistant. Copies of the e-mail were sent to Clack and to Jazz Foulandianpour, co-ordinator of documentation and control.
The manual for the Queen of the North -- which sank about an hour after it hit Gil Island -- contained organizational charts for shipboard emergencies, sections on emergency training and drills, emergency procedures for groundings, collisions and abandoning ship and a list of areas to be used in emergency beachings. Ironically, one was Fisherman Cove on the northwest tip of Gil Island.
The manual included extensive details on shipboard operations for both deck and engineering crews.
Tucked into at least one copy of the North's manual was a full set of "variances" issued by Transport Canada over several decades, excusing the Queen of the North from meeting a variety of regulations that would otherwise apply to it. The material -- not normally part of a vessel-specific manual -- included a list of the regulations that had been waived, the reasons they had been waived and the conditions that the ferry had to meet instead.
Once created, such manuals are periodically updated as new procedures are developed or equipment changes.
A company memo dated Oct. 2, 2006, and titled Recall of Crewing Manual Revision 08, contains instructions on how to navigate the appropriate internal company website and then reads: "Remove and Destroy Crewing Manual."
The crewing manual ordered destroyed, then in its eighth revision, contained job descriptions, protocols for crewing levels and scheduling of crew and for qualification, certification, familiarization and clearance of crew.
The human-resources manual included recruitment and training protocols.
Several of the issues from the two missing manuals are referred to in a manual on overall fleet regulations, but only in general terms. The fleet-regulations manual itself notes that much of the detailed material is to be found in the manuals that were deleted.
All of the manuals ordered destroyed are part of B.C. Ferries' "safety-management system."
Such systems are required under the International Safety Management Code on safety and anti-pollution standards. The code, established in the 1990s after several high-profile passenger-ferry tragedies, requires that a company set up a safety-management system that establishes operations and procedures to ensure safe, clean operation of vessels.
The system, formalized through a set of written manuals documenting the procedures and then brought to life through crew and management training, requires internal and external audits to ensure compliance.
Although Transport Canada decided not to require domestic ferries to comply with the code, B.C. Ferries brought itself into voluntary compliance in 1996.
Lloyd's Register, an international maritime agency, was hired by the company to certify that B.C. Ferries had fully complied with, and remains compliant with, ISM code.
Province calls to Lloyd's North Vancouver office, which carries out the inspections, were referred to Lloyd's office in Houston, Tex., which did not return calls or e-mails.
Ninety-nine people escaped when the Queen of the North sank south of Prince Rupert; two missing passengers are presumed dead.
Several lawsuits have been filed by passengers and family of the missing pair. The Transportation Safety Board has investigated and is preparing a report for release next year.
The only official hint of what might have gone wrong that night is in a May 11 letter from the safety board to the company.
It says that bridge crew were unfamiliar with newly installed steering equipment and turned off the chart monitor at night to reduce glare.
Mike Long, spokesman for Transport Minister Kevin Falcon, said yesterday the government played "no role in operations" and would not comment.
NDP ferries critic Gary Coons said, "It appears, from the outside, that the privatized [ferry] corporation has a [safety-management system] that is in shambles and no one is monitoring or overseeing safety and maintenance" and a "voluntary approach that lets it follow some rules and not others."
Coons called for greater oversight from Falcon's ministry and from the ferry company's board of directors, "who should be reassuring the public about the recent concerns over safety and maintenance."
Jackie Miller, president of the B.C. Ferry and Marine Workers Union, said the union would "have no comment at this time."
cmontgomery@png.canwest.com
© The Vancouver Province 2006
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