Military helicopter rescues 8 people after landslides on Vancouver Island 

The CH-149 Cormorant helicopter, using the callsign Rescue 911, extracted eight people from northern Vancouver Island. (19 Wing Comox)

Eight people were rescued by a military helicopter early Friday morning after an autumn rainstorm triggered landslides, downed power lines and washed out roads on northern Vancouver Island.

A spokesperson for the Joint Rescue Co-ordination Centre in Victoria says the agency was contacted by the Ministry of Emergency Management and Climate Readiness at approximately 10:30 p.m. Thursday, requesting the helicopter extraction.

The stranded people were in a vehicle on a road cut off by landslides near San Josef Bay on the remote northwestern end of the island.

With the area inaccessible to police and ground-based search and rescue crews, the co-ordination centre contacted air force personnel at 19 Wing Comox, where a Cormorant helicopter was readied to conduct the rescue.

“We’re the last resort,” said Lt.-Col. Claude Rivard, commanding officer of the 442 Transport and Rescue Squadron at 19 Wing Comox, in an interview Friday.

“Those are remote areas and leaving people there would be unsafe as you never know if there’s more mudslides coming,”

The helicopter’s pilots faced challenging conditions during the roughly 250-kilometre flight through heavy rain, wind and fog. “But they managed to find the eight people and managed to land on the road,” Rivard said.

All eight people were flown to the airport in Port Hardy, just east of San Josef Bay, where they were met by paramedics and local police.

B.C. Emergency Health Services says it dispatched two ambulances to the airport shortly after 2:30 a.m., when it was notified that the rescue helicopter was en route with the patients on board.

“Two ambulances with primary care paramedics met the patients upon arrival,” paramedic spokesperson Brian Twaites said in an emailed statement. “No patients required hospital transport.”

The storm triggered wind and rainfall warnings, as well as flood watches, across southwestern B.C. early Friday morning, forcing the cancellation of ferry sailings between Vancouver Island and the B.C. mainland.