Ottawa to review black box rules
Small planes, like the one in which Jim Prentice died, aren’t required to collect data
OTTAWA— Transport Canada is reviewing whether more aircraft should be equipped with black boxes to aid crash investigators following last week’s high-profile accident that killed former Alberta premier Jim Prentice.
Transport Minister Marc Garneau said Tuesday that he’s issued orders to department officials to take another look at the issue after warnings from safety board investigators that their probe of the Prentice crash will be hampered by the lack of black-box data.
“I think it’s a good time for us to look at the issue of whether or not we want to extend the use of data and voice recorders to aircraft that currently do not have to have them,” Garneau told reporters on Parliament Hill.
Federal regulations require only multi-engine, turbine-powered commercial aircraft flown by two pilots and carrying six or more passengers to be equipped with onboard flight recorders.
Smaller commercial aircraft are exempt.
Frustrated crash investigators have been pressing the federal transport regulator for 25 years to make such equipment mandatory on more types of aircraft.
The most recent call came this week, after Prentice, who was a former federal cabinet minister, and three others, including the pilot, were killed late Thursday when their small Cessna Citation jet crashed minutes after takeoff from the airport in Kelowna, B.C.
The jet was not equipped with either a cockpit voice recorder or a flight data recorder, nor was it required to be.
Yet such equipment — built to with- stand a crash and a post-impact fire — provides vital clues to investigators trying to piece together the cause of an accident.
Indeed, without the data from such recorders, investigating the cause of Thursday’s crash will be “particularly challenging,” the safety board says.
“This latest accident is another reminder of how important these recorders are. If we are to get to the underlying causes of these tragic accidents, Transport Canada and the aviation industry need to take immediate action to address this outstanding safety issue,” Kathy Fox, chair of the safety board, said in a statement.
The safety board says that lightweight flight-recording systems are now available that could be installed in smaller aircraft at low cost.
That would help accident investigators to flag safety deficiencies “in a timely manner,” the statement said.
Garneau said changing technology has made recording systems cheaper to buy and easier to install.
“When the TSB started talking about voice and data recorders, they were extremely expensive devices and there really was very little choice in terms of selection,” Garneau said.
“Today, technology has allowed us to produce cheaper versions that hopefully are still sturdy enough to withstand a potential crash, so I’ve instructed the ministry to look at it. I think this is the right time to do it.”
Such equipment has helped investigators looking into a crash that killed another prominent former politician in March.
Jean Lapierre and six others were killed when the Mitsubishi MU-2 turboprop he was in crashed during approach to Îles-de-la-Madeleine.
A lightweight recording system installed on the aircraft has provided key information about its final minutes.
“Given the potential of this technology . . . to significantly improve safety, the board believes that no effort should be spared to overcome these obstacles,” the report stated.