5 Britons killed after whale boat sinks off Vancouver Island

TOFINO, British Columbia (AP) — Five British nationals died when a whale watching boat with 27 people on board sank off Vancouver Island, the British Foreign Minister said Monday.

An Australian man was missing and the rest were rescued, some by members of the local aboriginal community who rushed to help.

[...] one of the fishermen first on the scene said a survivor reported that a sudden wave had capsized the boat.

A senior employee of the company operating the boat said the vessel sank so quickly the crew didn't have time to issue a mayday.

Government investigators arrived Monday afternoon in Tofino, a remote community of about 2,000 people at the very tip of a peninsula some 200 miles (320 kilometers) northwest of Victoria, the capital of British Columbia.

Marc Andre Poisson, Director of Marine Investigations for Canada's Transportation Safety Board, said it's too early to say what caused the boat to capsize it or what the contributing factors might be.

Jamie Bray, the owner of Jamie's Whaling Station which operates the boat, said he is cooperating with investigators to determine what happened but said he didn't know the cause.

The company's director of operations, Corene Inouye, said the crew used flares from the water which attracted the attention of local aboriginal fishermen.

In their small boat, they raced to the scene, and saw people in life rafts, in the water, and on rocks. 

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police sent an underwater recovery team to search for the missing person, with assistance from the Coast Guard and local search and rescue personnel.