The evidence of a decline in aviation safety in Canada comes from many sources: from industry experts; pilots, mechanics and their unions; accident investigations; and reports by investigative journalists.
The picture that emerges is a disturbing one: an industry where staff and insiders often fear to travel on their own companies' planes, and a system which increasingly looks like 'an accident looking for someplace to happen'.
The Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) released its annual reassessment of responses to Board recommendations. When the TSB identifies serious safety deficiencies during an investigation, it issues recommendations to the regulator or industry, putting a direct spotlight on what needs to be addressed.
Troubled by slow progress, the TSB is now calling on Transport Canada to intensify efforts on a number of outstanding safety recommendations, especially in aviation.
Transport Canada admitted Tuesday it is short of nearly 100 inspectors whose job is to check for safety problems at air carriers. Senior officials acknowledged the department is having a hard time filling all 880 positions, with vacancies currently standing at about 100 inspectors.
Meanwhile, Auditor General Michael Ferguson, also testifying before the House of Commons public accounts committee about oversight of Canada’s civil aviation system, complained Transport Canada’s own national human resources plan does not specify the number of inspectors and engineers that are needed. Ferguson noted the department agreed to provide these figures in response to his office’s 2008 audit, but Transport Canada has still not done so.
A new proposal by a government-led study group to toughen the rules for combating pilot fatigue is facing stiff opposition from some industry players.
Transport Canada’s aviation regulatory advisory council will convene next week to review proposals by its pilot fatigue management working group to modernize Canada’s regulations. The working group proposes a cap of 112 hours of flight time in a 28-day cycle, down from the current 140 hours. The working group’s co-chairs are also recommending special limits be placed on overnight flying.
The federal government paid out more than $500 million in legal settlements in the last fiscal year, according to new public accounts data.
The largest payout in the 2011-12 fiscal year was $448 million to settle 3,929 abuse claims through Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada. That’s an average of $114,000 per settlement.
The federal transport safety watchdog said Thursday she has seen "little or no change" in critical air-safety issues, including runway overruns and aircraft-landing accidents.
Wendy Tadros, chairwoman of the Transportation Safety Board, first flagged these issues in 2010 when the board released its inaugural safety watchlist. They remain on this year's watchlist alongside a new issue highlighting Transport Canada's weak oversight of smaller aviation companies while they transition to safety-management systems (SMS), with "some companies not even required to have one," the report says.
Transport Canada should require float plane passengers and crew to wear flotation devices during flights and planes should have rapid-escape emergency exits, said a sweeping B.C. Coroners Service report Tuesday aimed at reducing deaths in commercial float planes.
A special panel of experts prepared the report after closely investigating four crashes that killed 23 people over a five-year period.The panel also recommended Transport Canada require satellite tracking systems to locate crash sites faster, underwater egress training for flight crews, and illumination strips identifying emergency exits.
A fatigued, napping Air Canada co-pilot who awoke, wrongly believed his flight was on a collision course and pushed the plane sharply downward, is to blame for a January 2011 incident that left 16 injured, the Transportation Safety Board reported Monday.
Pilot fatigue, listed as the cause of the incident involving an overnight flight from Toronto to Zurich, has dogged Transport Canada for years, and safety advocates seized on the report to press Canada to update its "significantly deficient" flight and duty times regulations that take into account people's circadian rhythm and address time-of-day sensitivities.
A terrifying incident on an Air Canada flight from Toronto to Zurich last year took place because a pilot abruptly pushed the Boeing 767 into a dive shortly after waking up from an approved nap, says a report released today by Canada's Transportation Safety Board.
The report details what happened on Air Canada Flight 878 several hours after it left Toronto for Zurich on Jan 13, 2011. The report also finds several factors, including pilot fatigue, contributed to the incident that sent seven passengers to hospital in Switzerland.
Crashes into trees, mountains and man-made structures and runway overruns are two types of accidents that continue to occur despite TSB recommendations on how to avoid them.
"We find safety issues where we've made recommendations in the past," Tadros said. "So we know from very hard experience that if those safety issues aren't addressed, there will be another accident. It's as simple as that."
