An NDP critic says the death of a teenager on Labrador's northern coast is raising new questions about the ability of the military's search and rescue service to respond to a crisis.

Burton Winters, seen in a photo that a friend posted to a Facebook tribute page in his memory, died off the northern coast of Labrador this week. (CBC )

"I was shocked. I think we all were," St. John's East MP Jack Harris told CBC News on Friday, responding to revelations that the first calls for airborne help to find Burton Winters were made Sunday, two days before military aircraft joined the search.

The frozen body of the 14-year-old Winters was found Wednesday, three days after family started looking for the Makkovik resident. While a call for airborne help was made Sunday, military aircraft did not arrive on the scene until Tuesday, when his abandoned snowmobile was found.

Searchers say Winters had walked for about 19 kilometres from where his snowmobile had been abandoned, and an RCMP officer said that the trail of his prints through rough snow and jagged ice suggest that his path "hugged the shoreline."

Harris said the case is raising more questions about the Canadian military's search and rescue service.

MP Jack Harris: 'We want to see that investigation happen very quickly and we'd also like to see the details made public.' (CBC )

"There's something very wrong here," Harris said.

"Here we are six months after people were scandalized by the use of the transport of Peter MacKay as defence minister in a search and rescue helicopter, and yet they're not at the ready when it comes to this kind of search," said Harris, referring to revelations that a Cormorant helicopter was used to hoist MacKay from a fishing lodge in central Newfoundland.

Meanwhile, a military source tells CBC News that rescuers were standing by, waiting to be called, suggesting that there may have been a breakdown in communications.

Newfoundland and Labrador emergency officials said the Canadian Forces did not respond to their call right away because of poor weather and availability of resources, although searchers had been using a privately owned helicopter to search the ice-packed coastline of Makkovik in northern Labrador.

DND launches inquiry into case

On Thursday in the House of Commons, Associate Minister of National Defence Julian Fantino — responding to questioning from Harris — said the chief of defence staff has launched an investigation into what happened.

Merv Wiseman, a union representative for rescue co-ordinators, said he cannot figure out why a military aircraft was not in the air until Tuesday.

"What happened between Sunday evening and Tuesday evening is beyond me … it escapes me," Wiseman said.

"It doesn't make a whole lot of sense at this stage."

Harris, meanwhile, said he wants whatever is unearthed in the Department of National Defence probe to be made public — something, he noted, that did not happen with investigations in prior marine tragedies off Newfoundland and Labrador.

"We want to see that investigation happen very quickly and we'd also like to see the details made public," he said.