Prentice crash shows negligence in air travel
When former Alberta premier Jim Prentice and two friends climbed aboard a business aircraft in Kelowna two years ago, they had no idea the company operating the plane had never been inspected by Transport Canada, though it had been in business eight years.
How could they know their pilot was not trained to meet safety regulations or qualified to fly passengers at night? Or that the required maintenance had not been performed on their plane.
Like most of us, they probably assumed Transport Canada’s oversight of aviation would deliver them safely home.
Tragically, that is not how this story ends.
Only minutes after take off on a stormy night in Kelowna, their plane crashed with such force that little remained of the wreckage. Prentice and all the others on board were killed.
After accidents such as this, the Transportation Safety Board conducts a detailed investigation to find out what happened and why. This one took18 months to complete.
Sadly, because the plane was not equipped with a “black box” recording device, the board was unable to reach many conclusions about the causes of this fatal crash.
But the safety board did uncover Transport Canada’s dereliction of duty to ensure air operators in Canada comply with the safety requirements laid out in the Canadian Aviation Regulations.
Business aircraft, like the class of plane Prentice died in, had not been subject to any planned inspection by Transport Canada for more than five years, even though they operate in the same airspace as large commercial airlines.
Transport Canada’s negligence in this case is a cautionary tale for every Canadian who travels by air. The same shortcomings identified by the board in the crash that killed Prentice are in play today throughout Transport Canada’s safety oversight program.
The safety board criticized the near complete absence of safety oversight of the “business aviation” sector by Transport Canada. And in its report, the board said it’s not only business aircraft.
Transport Canada has also withdrawn its safety oversight program from several other aviation sectors that are now only inspected after something bad happens
Transport Canada’s reliance on “reactive” inspections of business aircraft performed only after an accident or incident, instead of conducting oversight activities before bad things happen, also came under fire by the Safety Board.
It only makes sense that Transport Canada should be trying to prevent accidents from occurring rather than waiting for them to happen before looking in to an airline’s safety performance.
The fact is Transport Canada does 10 “reactive” inspections for every preventive inspection.
For example, only after one Air Canada plane came within a few dozen feet of landing on four passenger-filled planes on the ground at San Francisco airport last summer did Transport Canada persuade Air Canada to tighten its safety practices.
Canadians don’t know exactly what measures Air Canada has put in place because they are a tightly held secret between the airline and Transport Canada. Shamefully, the public has no right to know.
Even when Transport Canada does check the major airlines, inspections on companies like Air Canada and West Jet are increasingly superficial.
Transport Canada has actually instructed its inspectors to do smaller, less probing inspections that take less time so it appears that the regulator is doing more than it actually is to ensure Canadians are safe when they fly.
Our safety blanket is getting thinner and thinner.
The Transportation Safety Board has repeatedly established as fact that Transport Canada’s weak aviation oversight program allows unsafe practices to persist, increasing risk for all.
Last week’s report on the Prentice accident confirms that Transport Canada’s neglect of aviation safety continues.
In February, the safety board published statistics showing a dramatic spike in aviation accidents and incidents in 2017. We believe this is related to the growing weakness of the oversight program.
The rise in incidents, in particular, is a strong indication that we are on the verge of something very bad.