Air search for Nunavut MLA Pauloosie Keyootak cost $339K
Territory spent more on MLA's air search than on all air searches in 2014-2015 fiscal year
The federal and territorial governments spent a combined $339,139.70 on planes and helicopters in the search and rescue of Nunavut MLA Pauloosie Keyootak and two others this spring.
The Government of Nunavut spent just over $75,000 and the rest was spent by the Canadian Armed Forces.
Keyootak, his son and nephew left Iqaluit in mid-March on two snowmobiles on their way to Qikiqtarjuaq with a planned stop in Pangnirtung.
When the group failed to make it to Pangnirtung, a ground search was started on March 27. Civilian and military air crews joined the search in the following days.
The group was found on March 31, 183 kilometres south of Iqaluit on the Hall Peninsula. They had gotten turned around in bad weather and a GPS system on a smartphone led them further astray. They were not carrying a SPOT device or a satellite phone.
In an email to CBC News, a Canadian Armed Forces spokesperson said the approximate total incremental cost was $263,632.57 for "CH-149 Cormorant and CC-130 Hercules Search and Rescue aircraft fuel consumption, accommodation and temporary duty allowances for aircrew and aircraft landing fees" from March 29 to 31.
Capt. Jamie Donovan said "the lion's share" of that was spent on fuel — approximately $231,000.
The aircraft were dispatched from the 413 Squadron in Greenwood, N.S., and the 103 Squadron in Gander, N.L., by the Joint Rescue Co-ordination Centre in Halifax.
'Business as usual'
Nunavut spent more on the air search and rescue of Keyootak's group than on all air searches in the 2014-2015 fiscal year combined.
According to the Nunavut Emergency Management Annual Report for that year, the total spent on air searches in 2014-2015 was $63,835.54.
It cost $75,507.33 to charter a de Havilland Twin Otter from Kenn Borek Air Limited and a Sikorsky S-61N helicopter from Canadian Helicopters to take part in the search and rescue of Keyootak.
The Twin Otter was used throughout the week, carrying Civil Air Search and Rescue Association volunteer spotters.
It was a spotter on the Twin Otter who saw the snowmobile tracks left by Keyootak's group on March 31, leading them to the stranded travellers. But when the plane landed, its hydraulic line broke and the plane could not take off again.
An RCAF Cormorant helicopter retrieved Keyootak and his group and the spotters back to Iqaluit. The next day, the Sikorsky S-61N helicopter was chartered to fly a crew out to the Twin Otter to repair it and fly back, said Kris Mullaly, a spokesperson for the Nunavut Department of Community and Government Services.
Even though Keyootak is an MLA, there was no preferential treatment, said Mullaly.
"It was business as usual," he said.
Mullaly said the cost of the air search is within the department's operational budget.
The total cost for the ground search for Keyootak's group is still being calculated.