SaltSpring Air is installing pop-out windows on its Beaver float planes that will make it easier for occupants to get out quickly in an emergency. (CBC)

A woman whose husband died in the aftermath of a plane crash five years ago says she is very encouraged by one B.C. airline company's plan to install pop-out windows in its float planes.

Kirsten Stevens' husband, David, initially survived a 2005 float plane crash near Campbell River, on Vancouver Island. He escaped from the plane wearing a life jacket, but suffered hypothermia and drowned before he could be pulled from the water.

Although the technology would not have saved her husband's life, Stevens said she welcomes the initiative by SaltSpring Air to outfit its float planes with windows that will allow passengers to more easily escape downed aircraft.

But Stevens said she's disappointed that Transport Canada is not making the windows mandatory on all float planes.

"You can go all the way back to the mid-'90s, when the Transportation Safety Board started making recommendations about float-plane safety and egress from float planes and that things needed to be done and changed," Stevens said.

"And you can see that Transport Canada did its own research and basically said, 'Well, there are other priorities, so we're not going to do anything.'"

Along with the new windows, Stevens said, float plane companies should ensure their pilots are trained in egress from their planes and that they instruct their passengers on what to do in such emergencies.

Three Beaver crashes

The newly designed window will replace the bubble windows on SaltSpring Air's six-seater DeHavilland Beaver aircraft.

"It's just common sense," said St. Clair McColl, president of SaltSpring Air.

"[The windows] are the same size [as the bubble windows]. They look identical, other than two placards that say, 'Push here for emergency exit.'"

Fifteen people have died in three Beaver crashes in B.C. since 2001.

Transportation Safety Board reports said that some of those victims survived the impact of the crashes but drowned before they could escape the submerged planes.

The board estimates that about 70 per cent of float plane fatalities are drownings, although it's not certain how many of those pilots and passengers were conscious after the crash.