Seems there were problems with the winch that were not mentioned in the TSB report.
Ian Wheeler remembers heading into work at the Cougar offices in St. John's, N.L., on what was looking to be a pretty typical day at the aviation company.
The rescue specialist planned to do some hoist training with his crew in one of the company's Sikorsky S-92 helicopters.
As he walked along the flight ramp, he saw 18 crew and rig workers filing onto another helicopter for a short, routine trip out to one of the offshore platforms.
It was just after 9 a.m. on March 12, 2009, and Wheeler was in the control centre gearing up for training when word came that the helicopter he had just waved off was having an oil pressure problem.
The news soon grew more dire as Wheeler saw a maintenance worker race to get a rescue helicopter ready, saying that Flight 491 might have to ditch in the water. Minutes later, he heard that the aircraft had gone down, prompting him and his team to head to the scene about 55 kilometres east of St. John's.
But the veteran specialist, who is being rewarded for his rescue work by the Governor General, says he was stunned to see a debris field that contained a mess of chopper parts, luggage, the bulkhead and empty life-rafts, but no immediate sign of survivors.
"We were looking around and not seeing anybody so it's starting to set in that, 'My God, where is everybody?'" Wheeler said from his home in Torbay, N.L., more than a week after finding out he is one of nine Canadians to receive a Medal of Bravery from the Governor General this year.
"They couldn't have drifted very far. If they're not on the surface, my God, they must be in the aircraft and the aircraft is gone."
Wheeler, 49, and his four crew mates did a broad, structured sweep of the area, scanning for telltale orange survival suits and signs of life.
In the midst of a tangle of netting, baggage and other debris, the crew saw someone in an orange suit who managed a faint wave from the frigid waters.
Wheeler was carefully lowered down to the site in two-metre waves and swam up to the man, who was slipping in and out of consciousness following 75 minutes in the water after a terrifying scramble out one of the helicopter's windows.
The hypothermic man, who was almost delirious and speaking in a slur, repeated a pleading question.
"He kept asking me over and over again, 'Are we OK? Are we OK?' " Wheeler said.
Wheeler assured the man he would get him out, later learning he was 27-year-old was Robert Decker. But Wheeler had trouble with the hoist and told him he would get another device to raise him up.
Panicked, Decker misunderstood and thought Wheeler was leaving.
"He looked at me and said, 'Don't leave me here, don't leave me,' " Wheeler said. "I looked him straight in the eye and said, 'I'm not going anywhere.' "
Hopes rose of more survivors when they spotted a dark suit that matched those worn by the pilots and what appeared to be an arm waving in the steady wind.
But when they got closer, they realized it was a kit bag with a black strap blowing in the breeze.
"There was a bit of disappointment there," he said. "We realized relatively quickly that the likelihood of seeing anybody else was very remote."
He said the gravity of what happened began sinking in for him when he arrived at the hospital with Decker and saw a line of 15 ambulances waiting for survivors. He told a doctor not to expect any more survivors.
It became more difficult when he returned to the Cougar office and had to tell dozens of anxious colleagues that their co-workers were likely lost.
Only then did Wheeler find out that several of his friends were on the flight, including First Officer Tim Lanouette, who he had lunch with five days earlier.
"I knew a lot of these guys going and coming," he says. "It's a pretty unique situation. ... Everybody knows everybody."
What stays with him are those initial sights of the debris scene, the empty life-rafts and his first face-to-face encounter with Decker, who later met the crew to thank them for saving him.
An official with the Governor General's office said the award would be handed out some time in the new year.
Rescuer in Cougar 491 crash recalls sole survivor waving faintly in Atlantic - Winnipeg Free Press