Runway mishap risks in focus

The Transportation Safety Board has been warning about the potential for runway accidents at Canada’s airports since 2010, calling it one of the “issues posing the greatest risk to Canada’s transportation system.”

Following the botched landing of an Air Canada plane in Halifax during the weekend, a prominent Canadian pilot says he shares those concerns and wants to see new safety measures implemented.

The safety board, an independent government agency that investigates accidents such as the one that occurred Saturday night, injuring 25, has made runway safety one of its top “watch-list” issues.

In the agency’s most recent watch list, published in November, it said an average of 150 Canadian aircraft are involved in approach-and-landing accidents every year. It warned that number has not decreased despite efforts by airports and Nav Canada, Canada’s civil air navigation service, to make runways safer.

“Operators, regulators and air-navigation service providers need to take more action to prevent approach-and-landing accidents, and to minimize the risks of adverse consequences if a runway overrun occurs,” the safety board said in its report.

Capt. Dan Adamus, who has been piloting commercial flights since 1985, said that while Canada’s runways are generally safe, there are some specific issues that need to be addressed. For instance, the runway on which the crash occurred appears to have lacked what is called a precision approach. Precision approaches make use of a variety of ground-based instruments to give pilots a specific angle and path to follow to ensure they land safely. “In large airports such as Toronto, they’ll have precision approaches at both ends of the runway,” Capt. Adamus said in an interview.