Cause of fatal MRU plane crash may never be known
Aircraft entered spin for unknown reasons, report says
It’s been more than a year since two Mount Royal University aviation program instructors were killed in a plane crash, and it may never be known what brought the plane down.
An investigation by the Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) found the plane entered a spin “for unknown reasons” on Feb. 13, 2017, while performing a stall-recovery exercise.
The report says the pilots were able to recover from the spin, but were too low to the ground to recover the plane from the dive that followed.
The plane crashed about 60 kilometres northwest of the Springbank Airport shortly after 5 p.m., killing instructors Jeffrey Bird and Reynold (Reyn) Johnson.
“Unfortunately, today’s Transport Safety Board of Canada report makes clear that they could not determine what caused the accident on that terrible day last February,” said Elizabeth Evans, dean of the faculty of business and communication studies at Mount Royal University.
“Nevertheless, we will carefully review the Transport Safety Board report to see where we can further enhance the aviation program.”
The university has made a number of changes to the aviation program’s safety procedures following the crash, including increasing the minimum altitude at which an aircraft should be recovered from a stall to 4,000 feet above ground level.
But the report revealed that MRU had been using a “nonstandard training practice” to recover from stalls that was “neither documented nor approved by the manufacturer” of the Tecnam P2006T aircraft.
The TSB found the manoeuvre was passed on by “word of mouth and demonstrated to new instructors.” And even though the recovery technique “resulted in manoeuvres ... that exceeded aircraft limitations, the practise continued.”
The report could not determine if either Bird or Johnson had ever been exposed to the non-standard practise or whether the instructor had used it on the fatal flight or on any previous flights.
Evans said that stall-recovery technique is no longer in use at the university.
“The instructors were certainly made clear that that was not to be continued once we were aware of it,” she said.
Evans also said the university would consider installing flight recorders on its planes if that recommendation is made by the TSB.
After the crash, MRU temporarily suspended all flight training while the university’s two remaining Tecnam P2006T aircraft were examined for signs of stress damage. No damage was found, but the university has since purchased two Piper PA 34 Seneca aircraft, which it now uses for its multiengine training aircraft.
Brendan Martin, aviation student executive president at MRU, said students were prepared that they might never know what caused the crash, but the best way to honour the memory of the instructors was to get back in the cockpit.
“For us, definitely as students, we hope that this report is able to bring some kind of closure to the families, to their friends and to us as an aviation community,” he said.
On the one-year anniversary of the crash, the university hung two plaques to commemorate Bird and Johnson.