An article by Ian Mulgrew in the Vancouver Sun, Ferry sinking: We may never know what happened starts with this sentence: "The public may never hear what actually happened aboard the Queen of the North ferry the night it hit Gil Island and sank, killing two people, because the family of the victims can’t afford B.C.’s exorbitant court fees."

Huh? Why not? The Queen of the North was the property of the citizens of British Columbia. That's us. Are they telling us that we can't find out why this ship is now sitting at the bottom of Granville Channel?

B.C. Ferries did an internal investigation in 2007. The Federal agency Transportation Safety Board did an investigation, and released a report in 2008; you can read it for yourself here.

The same day that Mulgrew's article was published, the provincial Ministry of Attorney General laid criminal negligence charges against the navigator, Karl Lilgert. You can read the Ministry's statement here. Good idea; let's get this thing in court.

One thing that we will probably learn from this is that the Queen of the North had a perfectly good GPS system, and the crew wasn't using it.

Video story from A/News.

I was a passenger on the Queen of the North in 2004. It was a wonderful experience.

Wikipedia article: MV Queen of the North

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