Six of the 8 passengers and the co-pilot were killed in the crash or while awaiting rescue, which came 98 minutes after take-off due to faulty equipment and the failure of the crew to transmit a distress call.
[1] and received its Certificate of Airworthiness on 27 October 1988[2] At the time of the accident, the airframe had a total of 9,778 flight hours.
[2] The aircraft logbook noted a significant increase in motor oil consumption on 01 December 1998, six days before the accident.
[2] Flight ASJ501 was scheduled to depart Baie-Comeau Airport for Rimouski Aerodrome at 06:15 Eastern Standard Time (11:15 UTC) on 07 December 1998.
While taxiing, the pilot-in-command François Roch concluded that the snow was not adhering to the windshield and therefore the flight surfaces were not contaminated and the aircraft did not need to be de-iced.
Forty seconds later, Lauzon read back instructions received from the FSS to contact Montreal Area Control Centre (ACC) on 134.65MHz.
At 500 feet above sea level (ASL), the aircraft turned right to intercept the Baie-Comeau VOR in accordance with standard departure procedure.
Having determined the aircraft was not safe to continue the flight, he attempted to return to Baie-Comeau and began lining up to land on Runway 28.
The aircraft crashed in the St. Lawrence River at 11:11 EST (16:11 UTC), approximately 1 nm from the end of Runway 10 and 0.5nm from shore.
[2] Four of the passengers were killed instantly when the floor in the middle of the plane buckled upward as the wing collapsed upon impact.
As a result, a distress call was not received, heard, or reported during the search, hampering and significantly delaying rescue operations.
Four minutes later, an airport maintenance attendant at Baie-Comeau went to the apron with a direction finder to see if he could receive an ELT signal.
Unable to find the aircraft, the airport personnel informed the Rescue Coordination Centre (RCC) in Halifax, Nova Scotia, which dispatched a Hercules from Canadian Forces Base (CFB) in Trenton, Ontario, to search for Flight 501.
At 11:59, the Mont-Joli FSS declared the aircraft was missing and moved into a Code Yellow alerting phase.
[3] Her mother reported the sighting to the Sûreté du Québec (SQ), the provincial police service of Quebec.
SQ requested assistance from a commercial operator, Héli-Manicouagan, to dispatch a Bell 206 helicopter to the site of the accident.
At 12:14, the Halifax RCC dispatched a Bell CH-146 Griffon helicopter from CFB Bagotville to the scene to rescue the victims.
During the hearings, the director of Baie-Comeau airport, Serge Parent, argued that the emergency operations plan did not allow for a helicopter to be dispatched to search for a missing aircraft until it was confirmed that it had crashed.
These deficiencies included a defective lift sensor on the stall warning system, an incorrect shoulder harness installation, the condition of the engines and alternators, and the ELT transmitter being mounted outside of manufacturer specifications.
The TSB also concluded that the pilots had little experience in adverse weather conditions and therefore had difficulty making effective decisions before and during the flight.