Annapolis Valley Register

Aurora aircraft makes emergency landing at Yarmouth airport

- BY TINA COMEAU

A CP-140 Aurora aircraft made an emergency landing at the Yarmouth Internatio­nal Airport on Nov. 16, after the airport was told the crew had detected a smell of smoke in the cockpit.

There were no injuries and any emergency dissipated quickly by the time the plane was down safely on the runway.

Airport manager Mike Fields said the tower operator in Yarmouth received a call from Moncton Air Traffic Control alerting the airport that an Aurora was going to touch down very quickly at the Yarmouth airport.

“They had smoke in the cockpit, no fire, and they were inbound to our runway,” Fields said about what they were told. “From there we launched our emergency response action plan and called 911. All the first responders responded appropriat­ely.” an hour all first responders had cleared the scene.

Capt. Matt Zalot, public affairs officer from 14 Wing Greenwood, had very few details about the incident shortly after it occurred.

“I can tell you there was an in-plane emergency,” Capt. Zalot said. “The aircraft, the Aurora, was about 40 nautical miles away from Yarmouth. They were able to use their training and take evasive action and they landed at the airport without further incident.”

Capt. Zalot said there will be a flight safety investigat­ion to determine the facts of exactly what happened. He couldn’t confirm, at the time of the interview, the smell of smoke in the cockpit as he said he hadn’t received a lot of details as of yet.

The Aurora was conducting training in the region. Capt. Zalot said the crew would be brought back to Greenwood with a new crew sent to Yarmouth to fly the Aurora back once the clearance had been given. prepared. He said three years ago the airport reworked its emergency response action plan and has done training exercises and tabletop exercises on several different types of scenarios. He said given the training with local emergency responders and the plan that is in place, things went very smooth.

“Communicat­ions was very smooth. The protocol was followed perfectly and within five minutes it was totally executed,” he said, also noting the significan­ce of the location of the airport.

“We are strategica­lly located between the US border and Halifax,” he said. “Having the airport here up and running is very important.”

Although the main runway 0624 is closed to normal airport traffic, it is available for emergencie­s.

In this case the airport’s second runway was used for the Aurora to land on.

“It is long enough and it was available for them to use and

The Acadia University Faculty Associatio­n has announced a strike deadline of Nov. 27 after negotiatio­ns on a new collective agreement between them and Acadia have stalled again.

The strike deadline was announced by the Nov. 14. In their statement, AUFA president Stephen Ahern felt they were left with ‘no choice’ after he said talks last week with the university failed to address the union’s issues.

The associatio­n held a vote, and 81 per cent of its members voted in favour of the strike.

AUFA spokespers­on Rachel Brickner said its biggest problem is Acadia’s board of governors’ “refusal to negotiate on anything with substance. What we’re getting is nothing from them,” she said.

Leading up to the deadline

The AUFA represents 331 full and part-time professors, librarians, archivists and instructor­s at Acadia.

Negotiatio­ns for a new collective agreement began in March 2017 and first stalled in June, after which AUFA filed for a conciliato­r to lead future discussion­s.

The conciliato­r-led discussion­s stalled again after one day of talks in early September. Last week saw another round of talks, where the associatio­n says Acadia’s board of governors did not address their clauses for restoring full-time faculty positions, pay equity issues, salaries reflecting regional averages and fundraisin­g for campus childcare.

“They’ve come to the table, but they’re not offering us anything to work with. We want to get a deal done, and we need a partner at

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from Canada