The distress beacon of the missing helicopter was OFF

The switch on the distress transmitter of the helicopter of the CEO of Savoura was found at the position OFFThis explains why the emergency signal did not allow the accident site to be identified quickly.

"The radio beacon (distress) is the only automatic way (to send a distress message) if it is in its proper configuration," explains the pilot pilot of Passport Hélico, Patrick Lafleur.

There are other personal distress beacons, but they must be manually activated.

Those in aircraft, called ELTs, fire on their own during a sufficiently violent impact.

Missing on July 10, 2019, Mr. Roy's helicopter was finally found on July 25 near Valtrie Lake, north of Mont-Tremblant National Park, after two weeks of intensive searches complicated by the lack of a warning signal. distress and by the density of vegetation.

Since the disappearance of the aircraft, members of the Savoura family, friends and experts wondered why the emergency locator had not sent an emergency signal. The answer was finally provided yesterday by the Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) after The newspaper he had asked the question a few times this week.

The signal emitted by the ELTs is picked up by satellites and relayed to Canadian Army rescuers. It contains not only the registration of the device, but also the name of its owner and emergency contacts.

A functional tag

It also contains the exact position of the device in difficulty.

Why was this ELT OFF ? This is the question that the TSB will try to find an answer to.

Certainly, The newspaper yesterday contacted the company that had the last interview on the Robinson R44 from the president of Savoura, and the chief engineer assured us that he had all the evidence that the ELT had been well tested and reinstalled in the helicopter, according to the rules of art, last April.

During this test, the mechanics are able to listen to the sound signal of the beacon on the radio of the aircraft, which would have been done.

During such a test, a message is relayed to the army. In turn, it sends a message (usually by email) to the owner of the aircraft as confirmation.

Beacons must be tested every year and batteries, good or bad, must be replaced every two years.

Pilots are recommended to test their ELT regularly. They can do it in the first five minutes of each hour without triggering a rescue operation.

A switch to WE

What is also disturbing in this investigation is that Stéphane Roy's helicopter was equipped with a switch enabling him to activate this emergency beacon from the cockpit, and that he was found at the position WE.

But as the switch on the beacon (in the tail of the device) was at OFF, this one could not trigger.

The switch in the cockpit allows occupants to manually trigger the distress signal during an emergency.

This suggests that Stéphane Roy or his son Justin tried to alert the rescuers by doing their emergency landing procedure.

A GPS and two cell phones were also found by the Sûreté du Québec aboard the Robinson R44 helicopter, in which were Stéphane Roy and his son Justin.

"We will try to extract data (from these devices) that could be useful to the investigation," said the TSB.

In addition, the federal agency estimates that the damage to the helicopter during the crash caused the main rotor and tail rotor not to rotate at full speed at the time of impact.

"Further analysis will be done to try to determine the rotational speed at the time of impact," the TSB said.

Volunteer resources from the Sûreté du Québec and the Royal Canadian Air Force had been pooled during the search.

During the course of its investigation, the SQ was able to severely restrict the huge search territory with the help of a Telus telecommunication service employee, in order to finally locate the helicopter's carcass. The cellular signal from Mr. Roy's phone was picked up by two towers of Telus.