Transport Canada decision led to deadly crash: safety board

[carholme]

CID;

The point is to discuss the issue, if you can't carry on a discussion without it sinking to a nonsense level, I respect and withdraw. The information is there for all to see and make their own choices. I have stated what choice I would make.

carholme

[CID]

OK. I'll take that as notice that you don't want to talk about it. Next time think twice before you make provocative statments like:

I am sure CID will be along soon enough to thwart any efforts by the rest of us "alarmists".

Maybe we can save a whole lot of time and effort.

[the original tony]

At the end of the day, it is TC, accountability and reason are not applicable.
I refuse to accept them as a governing body when i see the animals they use as inspectors.
Enforcing laws as they see fit, or unfit. Whatever works.
Are there good guys? sure, but god help them if they speak. Bite the hand that feeds you, even if it is covered in blood.
I have witnessed first hand, being a victim of their fear mongering, legal explanations to why our company has to be shutdown.
Yet the very same people barnstorming our office with a TC badge have files twice the size of most regions!!
Hire the crooks, to catch crooks?? Sounds like good gov't to me.
when does it end?? where does it end??
Aviation started way before any bullshit TC was involved and it can run just fine without it. The sky will still be blue.
If the real problems go unaddressed then what is their purpose?
oh, my $55 fee. i knew it was good for something. Make work projects are great.

Tony

[Cat Driver]

At the end of the day, it is TC, accountability and reason are not applicable.
I refuse to accept them as a governing body when i see the animals they use as inspectors.
Enforcing laws as they see fit, or unfit. Whatever works.
Are there good guys? sure, but god help them if they speak. Bite the hand that feeds you, even if it is covered in blood.

That is an accurate picture of the regulator.

[snoopy]

2milefinal, you wrote: "So Bell says they did not like this kind of repair (B)UT TC says its OK. Can anyone find another example of this sort of thing. From any other product or a/c.?? Does happen often?"

It happens very often where Transport Canada issues exemptions or exceptions to Manufacturer recommendations - in all manner of aircraft components.

As an example, manufacturers often issue Service Bulletins (SBs) which dictate recommended inspection/overhaul times for the airframe, engine, prop, governor and other major components. Commercial operators refer to these SB's when drafting Maintenance Schedules for their aircraft.

From Transport's Airworthiness notice B0-55: "On occasion the communication of airworthiness limitations, such as component life limits or maintenance requirements is accomplished by referring to service bulletins or equivalent notices. When used in this manner the content of the bulletin is a condition of the type certificate; and, except where Transport Canada has granted approval to deviate, compliance is mandatory."
http://www.tc.gc.ca/civilaviation/maint ... s/B055.htm

The overhaul/inspection times referred to in these SBs are not the manufacturers' attempt to gouge the operator for more money. They are based on extensive overhaul experience and known failures in service (like propellers shedding blades as a result of corrosion, for example). They also represent the limit of the manufacturer's liability in representing their product - ie, if you wander outside their inspection/overhaul requirements, unless they specifically approve it, you better believe they accept no liability for any accident you may have after the fact.

But Transport Canada often over-rides these recommendations based on pressure from the operators, who want to minimize maintenance costs. So exemptions, tolerances and exceptions are granted in the maintenance schedule, and PRESTO! you are now authorized to operate outside manufacturer recommendations. But one has to ask, does Transport Canada assume liability for each time they over-ride the manufacturer's recommendations? Nope. They'll enable you to do it, but at your own risk.

Our company does Maintenance Schedules, among other things, for various operators. When we do them, we comb all the manufacturer's publications, including service bulletins, for all major component overhaul/inspection times. These are generally far more restrictive than what Transport Canada allows. Maintenance schedules done by us, are published on those standards. The operator is invariably alarmed, as suddenly their aircraft may become grounded, or they fore-see drastic changes to their maintenance costs. Ah, but Transport has created an out - the operator can apply for, and generally get, broader tolerances in most instances. Not once has any operator opted to stick with Manufacturer Recommendations where TC has opened the door.

On several occasions, we have spoken to various manufacturer's who speak in frustration, of Transport Canada (and the FAA's) immense power as a government agency, to over-ride their recommendations. These manufacturers are powerless to do anything about it, except lobby the respective government for change after an accident.

The instance which originated the thread is no exception.

Cheers,
Snoopy

[Widow]

Is this related?

Corporation:
Quantum Helicopters Ltd.

Date: Count(s): Violation: Penalty: Location:
2006/06/01 1 CAR 703.02 $12 500 Terrace, B.C.

The Company operated contrary to the provisions and operations specifications of its Air Operator Certificate.

http://www.tc.gc.ca/CivilAviation/RegSe ... /dec07.htm

As a side note, I find it extraordinary that on the same page two companies have been fined for operating without an OC - in 2001!!!! How on earth did it take more than SIX YEARS to complete the enforcement action????

[carholme]

Widow;

As you see, NAA did operate TEN times without an AOC. If this was an accident of theirs we were reviewing, I am sure we would be asking why TC did not yank their certificate completely as in the case of Sonicblue who as the TC spokesman states, was operating illegally.

If you can get away with it ten times, why do any of us piss around having a certificate? Obviously they are not as treasured as we thought they were.

carholme

[Widow]

According to the tribunal ...

Because of the interrelationship, common ownership and contracts between North American Airlines Ltd. and 414660 Alberta Ltd., cob as Business Flights

... i.e. 15 counts total.

http://www.tc.gc.ca/CivilAviation/regse ... erican.htm

[Cat Driver]

This should be posted on the walls of every operator in Canada.

At the end of the day, it is TC, accountability and reason are not applicable.
I refuse to accept them as a governing body when I see the animals they use as inspectors.

[snaproll20]

Yeah, Tony and CatDriver have it correct.
Animals!

[Cat Driver]

Transport Canada has become the biggest single threat to aviation and those who work in aviation that we have ever experienced.

Market and financial trends are cyclical but TC's brutalizing of the industry through incompetent and corrupt management just gets worse as time passes.

Animals is probably as good a description as we will find.

[ballsac]

Transport Canada has become the biggest single threat to aviation and those who work in aviation that we have ever experienced.

Market and financial trends are cyclical but TC's brutalizing of the industry through incompetent and corrupt management just gets worse as time passes.

Animals is probably as good a description as we will find.

Since the public's thirst for juicy aviation stories is insatiable, these TC allegations would seem to be easy pickings for an investigative news team. I'm surprised we haven't seen any of this on W5, The Fifth Estate, etc.

Why is that?

[Cat Driver]

Maybe because those of us who accuse TC of these actions are just bad people making false allegations?

What is your opinion on this ballsac?

[gianthammer]

Geeze I wonder why a government dictated and run network does not run stories exploiting their own depatments , as free as this contry may seem it is situations such as this that SHOULD make us all think twice about this so-called democracy we all live in and support1

[2milefinal]

Thanks for all the info SNOOPY.
After I asked that question I staring thinking about a number of things I had seen and heard.
Does anyone have the story about KingAirs,BATHTUB fittings and TC NOT inspecting them?

[CID]

But Transport Canada often over-rides these recommendations based on pressure from the operators, who want to minimize maintenance costs. So exemptions, tolerances and exceptions are granted in the maintenance schedule, and PRESTO! you are now authorized to operate outside manufacturer recommendations. But one has to ask, does Transport Canada assume liability for each time they over-ride the manufacturer's recommendations? Nope. They'll enable you to do it, but at your own risk.

Transport Canada relies on justification provided by the requestor. If they say "no" they get accused of not understanding the request or the engineering behind it. If they say yes, they get tagged with liability.

If you wan't TC to assume responsibility for the actions of every aerospace company in the country, then be prepared to hear "no" alot. Be prepared to apply every service memo, letter and recommendation from the manufacturers and send your components ONLY to the original manufacturers for repair and overhaul.

This was certainly an unfortunate incident that ended in the tragic loss of life. So why don't we learn from it and move on?

widow, to answer your question regarding the lag in enforcement action, although I don't know the details, it may be that the incidents were just recently discovered during an audit.

Sometimes while digging through data, TC discovers an irregularity and starts digging deeper and farther back. So it might be an issue finding the irregularity six years later and not a six year delay in resolving the enforcement action.

Transport Canada has become the biggest single threat to aviation and those who work in aviation that we have ever experienced.

Are you suggesting that the company that did the repairs is just a victim here?

[Widow]

widow, to answer your question regarding the lag in enforcement action, although I don't know the details, it may be that the incidents were just recently discovered during an audit.

Sometimes while digging through data, TC discovers an irregularity and starts digging deeper and farther back. So it might be an issue finding the irregularity six years later and not a six year delay in resolving the enforcement action.

If you check the tribunal review determination I linked to, you will see it was dated February 2002. The information wasn't recently discovered. It took almost six years to finalize.

[trey kule]

First of all, to the origianl tony.....I dont agree that anyone is a "good guy", if he is to cowardly to speak up against wrongful actions. He is, in fact, a morally bankrupt, coward who puts his own interests first even in the light of ignoring unlawful behavior...now on to the topic.

I am going to defend TC here. It just seems sometimes that they are damned if they do and damned if they dont. TC did not do the repair. A repair facility did. I am getting a little bit tired of everyone being the victim...pilots can chose to work for a scum bag operator so they can build hours...then when an accident occurs they suddenly become victims. AMO,s can do not authorizxed repairs or use improper parts and when the accident happens they suddenly are not responsible.

How about this. AS operators, As AMes, As Pilots...Lets do what is right...The only way, and absolutely the only way TC should bear any responsibility here is if they had some important information that they failed to pass on...and I mean either by way of SB/AD or other method of information transmission. They simply can not oversee every repair being made.

My Saturday morning rant.

[CD]

As a side note, I find it extraordinary that on the same page two companies have been fined for operating without an OC - in 2001!!!! How on earth did it take more than SIX YEARS to complete the enforcement action????

I'm not sure that there is anything particularly nefarious or inappropriate about the recent posting on the Corporate Offenders list. As you posted earlier and as noted on the CAT/TATC site, the hearing related to the infractions was completed in February 2002:

CAT File No. W-2289-41 - C/O/B Business Flights (414660 Alberta Ltd.)
CAT File No. W-2288-41 - North American Airlines Ltd.

On the Corporate Offenders site, there is an advisory as follows:

"The following information is extracted from cases indicated closed on the Enforcement Management System (EMS) during the month of December 2007."

So, the cases were finally closed in the EMS as of December 2007. As you note, what is not evident is the cause of the delay from the time the CAT decision was made in 2002 and the time the EMS database was updated in 2007. Perhaps there were appeals filed by the company, there may have been a delay in collecting the fine or some other procedural matter that caused a delay in updating the EMS? I suppose one could conduct a review of various CAT/TATC decisions and compare these against the Offenders list to determine if this was a unique occurence or whether there are other instances where there has been a delay between the decision and updating the EMS.

[trey kule]

Widow.

I know I am not going to be popular writing this, but if a person continually puts an organization under the microscope and continually, and at every opportunity finds fault with them, I think it is inevitable that you will find problems. There are going to be mistakes and your continually trying to hold Tc up to 100% no mistakes is just plain (plane?) wrong.

What you should be doing, rather than throwing out questions, is looking for continual trends of mistakes in a particular area which would indicate a problem that should be corrected.

I think it is well know , for instance that TC's enforcement departments are in need of a major cleaning up, as there seems to be no effort on their part to get rid of the people who are responsible...and in one case , in prairie region, even promoting them.

Please, stop splatting mud on the wall and target your criticisms. It is getting hard for me to give you the credibility you deserve and the respect for your hard work.

[Widow]

I'm not sure I understand your criticism of me, trey kule. If you agree that the TCCA enforcment department needs a "clean up", how is it that the amount of time it takes for an enforcement action to be completed is irrelevant? I'm sure 5 years is way beyond the norm, however ... a couple of years does not seem to be uncommon, especially with corporate offenders. How does that protect the general public? Or indeed, the pilot who is working for the offender?

Please refer to this thread: TCCA Response to TSB Recommendations re Oversight

And then refer to this thread: dealing with inept manager

SMS does not work without effective oversight. IMHO effective oversight must include prompt conclusions to enforcement actions.

The same goes for prompt action when the TSB makes a recommendation. What the heck are they for if "we" don't learn from what they uncover?

[carholme]

Trey Kule;

Not to dispute your point of view but we are talking here about a safety matter, a result of which people died. Who is to blame is irrelevant, that will be figured out by a more competent authority, I hope.

My point as regards the repair carried out to the helicopter component is that a qualified agency (the manufacturer) recommended that repairs not be carried out to this component. They supported this by reference to previous problems with the component part and issued an OSN

As an AMO and an AME, it would be incumbent on me to read the OSN provided by Bell Helicopter as a part of the library I have to maintain to support my AMO status. As some have suggested here that it is the manufacturer trying to corral dollars, is not for me to determine.
However, if I am trying to be responsible to my QA system, be it SMS or any other. I will have to address at some point why I failed to exhaust every avenue of contact with the manufacturer to see their reasoning behind the OSN, especially as other agencies had determined that the repair was acceptable. The manufacturer in this case as several others would have stated that there are no authorized procedures for overhaul/repair of the component with this particular defect and that they had not provided authorization for any other agency to perform any repairs.

Now the problem is that a regulatory agency has approved a repair scheme submitted by an overhaul agency, without the approval of the manufacturer and the result was more deaths attributed directly to the component and it's repair and that regulatory agency has susequently issed an AD for the recall of all parts repaired.

Does this not suggest that there was a specific reason why the OSN was issued in the first place?

This is a perfect example of how the holes in the cheese all lined up correctly, when the information was there in front of us to take action and prevent the result.

The blame will fall where it may, it doesn't release us from the responsibility of several other of the same issues as Snoopy is referring to in her post.

Regards

carholme

[TC Guy]

First of all, to the origianl tony.....I dont agree that anyone is a "good guy", if he is to cowardly to speak up against wrongful actions. He is, in fact, a morally bankrupt, coward who puts his own interests first even in the light of ignoring unlawful behavior...

Absolutely and without question... TRUE.

I am going to defend TC here. It just seems sometimes that they are damned if they do and damned if they dont.

This is certainly one thing I have learned with my time at the department, Trey. "Why doesn't TC shut those bastards down?"... then... "TC shut those guys down, what bastards!"... or my personal favorite "I am sure glad you shut those bastards down, they have been doing that for years! I always thought it was dangerous!" What the?

How about this. AS operators, As AMes, As Pilots...Lets do what is right...The only way, and absolutely the only way TC should bear any responsibility here is if they had some important information that they failed to pass on...

Exactly.

-Guy

[Cat Driver]

So tell me TC Guy, what you think should be done with your top managers such as Preuss and Nowzek who were found guilty of not allowing due process to be followed for a Canadian citizen in their decision making to protect some of their own?

Or is your employer above the very laws they are sworn to uphold?

Remember, while you are deciding how to answer this we are talking about a Canadian citizen with an unblemished record in aviation.....who was following the CAR's.........

Is it O.K. for your organazation to choose which bastards they shut down regardless of the fact the bastard was following CAR's and your bastards were not?

[TC Guy]

So tell me TC Guy, what you think should be done with your top managers such as Preuss and Nowzek who were found guilty of not allowing due process to be followed for a Canadian citizen in their decision making to protect some of their own?

As I have said, Cat... I don't know. I wasn't there. I AM, however well aware of your feelings on the matter -- no confusion exists in my mind how you feel, or what you would like done.

Or is your employer above the very laws they are sworn to uphold?

No.

Remember, while you are deciding how to answer this we are talking about a Canadian citizen with an unblemished record in aviation.....who was following the CAR's.........

Is it O.K. for your organazation to choose which bastards they shut down regardless of the fact the bastard was following CAR's and your bastards were not?

I don't know. I wasn't there.

-Guy