VANCOUVER -- The navigating officer of the Queen of the North ferry, which sank off the BC coast in 2006 with nearly 100 people aboard, pleaded not guilty to charges of criminal negligence causing death Wednesday.

The trial for Karl Lilgert begins Jan. 17 in Vancouver after a jury is selected.

Gerald Foisy and Shirley Rossette both died March 22, 2006 when the ferry struck ground near Gil Island in the Wright Sound and sank about 80 minutes later. Ninety-nine passengers and crew managed to escape.

Lilgert was on the bridge with his former lover, Karen Bricker, when the time the vessel collided with an island in a bay south of Prince Rupert.

The bodies of Rosette and Foisy were never recovered.