A tugboat that sank in Northumberland Channel in Nanaimo harbour in May is still on the ocean floor and continues to be monitored by the Canadian Coast Guard and its owners.
No one was injured May 24 when the nine-metre M.V. Alburn capsized and sank after colliding with the larger M.V. C.T. Titan, but the vessel is still lying on the bottom of the channel under about 100 metres of water.
Dan Bate, Fisheries and Oceans Canada spokesman, said in an e-mail to the News Bulletin Wednesday that the Canadian Coast Guard and the tug’s owner, Jones Marine, is still monitoring the area around the site.
“There has been no recoverable product released since the sinking,” Bate said.
The Transportation Safety Board of Canada said Tuesday it is in the data analysis phase of its investigation into the sinking.
“She’s still underwater and I don’t know if they have any plans to raise it. Meanwhile we interviewed both the crew of the Alburn and the Titan and we have taken some electronic data off the Titan and we’ll be going through all the information that we have collected to date,” said Mohan Roman, safety board spokesman.
Roman said the safety board will start writing its report on the sinking once all the collected data is analyzed, which he said usually takes a little more than one year.