TSB Investigation into 703 fatalities

[Meatservo]

Let me get this straight: Transport Canada bases duty time, equipment, performance, experience and licensing requirements for different categories of aircraft on how many people can fit into a particular aircraft, and now someone wants to know why the ones that hold the fewest people are crashing the most?

It's like a Russian satire.

What a grotesque farce.

[Rockie]

Personally I think the TSB is deliberately putting the government on notice. The Feds have systematically ignored the TSB's recommendations regarding SMS and oversight since the beginning, so now the TSB is going to compile it all into one giant omnibus package (the Conservatives are very fond of omnibus packages) and lay the whole stinking pile right at their feet.

I can't wait to read it.

[iflyforpie]

SMS hasn't done and won't do anything without oversight... something it actually was put in place to eliminate. Look at Keystone, the poster child for 703 SMS... and they still managed to pile one in. As the Colonel was fond of saying, there is the paper airplane, and the real airplane, and they aren't necessarily the same.

We won't get more oversight until TCCA gets more manpower and resources.

[Illya Kuryakin]

We won't get more oversight until TCCA gets more manpower and resources.

Good plan. More useless people doing less and less till their pensions kick in. Yup, that's the answer!
This newest round of stupidity will take 24 months to research. 24 months to review and amend. 24 months to implement. Their pensions should be up and running by then. Think I'll be impeding traffic in my Winnabago by then.
Illya

[iflyforpie]

So you're saying that less or no oversight is better, Illya?

Or that maybe we should bring in a more efficient private third party? Contrails perhaps?

[Illya Kuryakin]

So you're saying that less or no oversight is better, Illya?

Or that maybe we should bring in a more efficient private third party? Contrails perhaps?

With TC you'd get more people doing what they're doing now. SFA. We know this. Now go enjoy a lemon meringue pie.
Illya

[DonutHole]

I actually like sms

If people buy in and make a good sms policy then it can work, it's actually beneficial.. The problem is I don't think people can be left alone with no oversight and still be expected to use the power of sms in a responsible manner

Great idea... Poor execution.

[snoopy]

@ single_swine_herder.... that was an awesome post (the second one you made in this thread). So true - then and now.

[timel]

Refusal meant you were fired on the spot, or left to sit at home "on stand-by duty" for a few weeks with zero income until you "learned your lesson" about having stood up for yourself, or moved on to the next job you hoped would be better. Your wife with a newborn would be wondering what useless horse she'd tied her wagon to, and you wouldn't have the full rent payment.

I am only aware of one place where pilots get paid only when they fly, if we speak of 703 ops.
Is it still pretty widespread in Canada? I've been thinking it was an obsolete business model.

In that particular place pilots pay for their ppcs, yes it makes them vulnerable to what the boss wants.

Speaking of TC, it should ring a bell. People pay for training? People only get paid when they fly?
Renumeration is an obvious indirect pressure, you need money you might want to push, even if TC doesn't want to get involved in pilots pays, there is definitely something to look at.

When you get a fixed salary and a bound, you know where you are and it is easier to fix standards and say no.

[goldeneagle]

Recorders were first mandated into big airplanes, so that we could get an understanding of how accidents happened, with an eye to learning, and then teaching prevention.

I think if the TSB does a thorough job of looking into fatalities of the last 10 years within 703 or even 704 and 705, the answers will be strait forward.

a) There have been no 'new and not already understood' classes of accident
b) A few mechanical problems, but, for the most part, the rest were preventable, and the knowledge of how to prevent, was readily available 10 years ago, just as it is today.

Further looking will determine, the existing regulatory framework covers the bases for most of these accidents, but, a significant number of the incidents happened with folks operating outside of the existing regulatory framework.

Regulations requiring recorders will make zero difference. Just look at 703, 704 and 705 over the same period. Were there any accidents in the last 10 years involving aircraft with recorders, where we learned something new about how airplanes can hit things at high speed ? I cant think of any, but, we did learn that non-functional recorders produce no data. We also learned, full deflection of the ils at minimums, has a high probability of hitting something. Did we learn anything new ? Nope. Did installing recorders save lives? Dunno, but, airplanes that hit the ground at flying speed still managed to end up with dead occupants, recorders installed or not, running or not.

Now look back over various 703 accidents that have been discussed to death here over time. Airplanes running .. along the lakes, and fly into a hillside, or running .. on the ocean, then hit an island. Homebrew gps arrival into heavy snow at a place with no approach. Falling down from ice. Run outa gas and fall down. I am pretty sure, even before the 10 year period on question, we can find plenty of examples of all of these, there's really nothing new to be learned here.

Will more new regulations change any of this? There are already regulations regarding ceilings and visibility, which _should_ preclude driving into hillsides and or islands without realizing they are there. There are already clearly defined descent limits in areas with no approach. There are already regulations regarding how much fuel should be on board for a given flight, and more regulations regarding all up aircraft weight at takeoff. All of these circumstances are already covered by current regulations, so, how will more / new ones change any of it ?

But there is one thing I do see coming out of this kind of investigation. There will be more / new rules coming. And, due to that, for those of us that operate entirely within the existing and future regulatory framework, it means the cost of doing business will increase. And for those that currently operate outside of the regulatory framework, nothing will change, so, the pricing advantage they enjoy today, will increase a bit.

But sometimes I think, folks lose sight of the big picture when this subject comes up. Today as a great example of why. There is an aircraft down on the ice this morning, preliminary reports I've read, 7 folks on board, no serious injuries. This is a headline on a national news service ? Why? If it was an suv in the ditch somewhere on the prairies, with 7 folks on board, it wouldn't even register as a footnote in the local paper, never mind a national headline. Aircraft accidents are high profile because they are rare, very rare. The thing that does make me wonder at times tho, why is it, when we hear about signficant accidents involving fatalities, it's the same few names popping up, over and over, then everybody tars the entire 703 segment of the industry with that brush. The VAST majority of operators dont deserve that tarring and feathering, they run good shows, where flights go off day in and day out without a hitch. Employees are happy, and folks all make a living at the job. Most of them stick around, because they love the work, lord knows, none of them are sticking around because of the money. so why the propensity to tar all of the folks that hold / own a 703 certificate, just because of a few bad apples. there are bad apples in every barrel, not just the 703 segment of aviation. We can find them in 704, 705, construction, restaurants, oil patch, you name it. Every barrel has good and bad apples in it.

More / new regulations will not change anything. None of the above mentioned accidents would be prevented by new regulations over and above those already in place. Adherence to existing regulations would likely have prevented most of them. Does this ring a bell of any kind ? You want a level playing field for pricing in 703, great, I'm all for it. All it takes, is enforcement of the existing regulatory framework. New regs just mean, more regs to ignore for those folks operating on that principle, and a higher cost of doing business for those already compliant.

[Shiny Side Up]

We won't get more oversight until TCCA gets more manpower and resources.

Good plan. More useless people doing less and less till their pensions kick in. Yup, that's the answer!
This newest round of stupidity will take 24 months to research. 24 months to review and amend. 24 months to implement. Their pensions should be up and running by then. Think I'll be impeding traffic in my Winnabago by then.
Illya

I hate to say it, but TCCA does need more man power, but also it needs some house cleaning of the man power it already has. Currently it has not enough people to do a lot of its mandate, and there's a lot of the ones it has that are dead weight.

[timel]

We won't get more oversight until TCCA gets more manpower and resources.

Good plan. More useless people doing less and less till their pensions kick in. Yup, that's the answer!
This newest round of stupidity will take 24 months to research. 24 months to review and amend. 24 months to implement. Their pensions should be up and running by then. Think I'll be impeding traffic in my Winnabago by then.
Illya

I hate to say it, but TCCA does need more man power, but also it needs some house cleaning of the man power it already has. Currently it has not enough people to do a lot of its mandate, and there's a lot of the ones it has that are dead weight.

Not to do politics but the actual government did rough cuts past years in TC and there is a lot of polical game going down there, and I agree with what you said.
They know very well who are the operators that they have to keep an eye on.

And we all know who are the rotten tomatoes, like those places that are looking for a new CP every three weeks.

More / new regulations will not change anything. None of the above mentioned accidents would be prevented by new regulations over and above those already in place. Adherence to existing regulations would likely have prevented most of them. Does this ring a bell of any kind ? You want a level playing field for pricing in 703, great, I'm all for it. All it takes, is enforcement of the existing regulatory framework. New regs just mean, more regs to ignore for those folks operating on that principle, and a higher cost of doing business for those already compliant.

True, if we all apply the actual regulations, ops in 703 are very safe.
The only serious big changes in regs need to be for rest and duties that are unsafe... but it is coming with the new npa.

[Prairie Chicken]

We won't get more oversight until TCCA gets more manpower and resources.

You're right. I have no doubt SMS was incremented because the DGCA(s) knew their budgets were being slashed & SMS was the only option they could spin to industry, the pubic, & employees. I believe SMS is a good thing, but only with oversight. There is no oversight because there is no budget for it.

In the distant past TC were regulators, and they did what they could within the law to shut down the bad operators. In the even further distant past, I recall the Regional Director of Air Regulations taking a licence away & telling the holder to come back & grovel for it when he thought he'd learned his lesson. When the guy got up the nerve to do so, he may or may not have left with the licence. I doubt if any of you would appreciate that 'no appeals' approach now, but it did have it's upside. These days, TC don't have the inspectors to do regulatory oversight, they're losing what expertise they do have by hiring clerks to do the paperwork, and inspectors are forbidden to investigate SMS companies. Don't blame the employees!

The problem goes well beyond TC. The government is collecting a lot of our money so they can spend it on their own frivolous wastefulness. Unfortunately, they can't afford to spend that money on both themselves and protecting their citizens.

[Cat Driver]

Prairie Chick has it right.

And sadly it will not get better in our life time.

[single_swine_herder]

Well said Prairie Chick.

I worked in the region where the late Mr Beatty would rule with the same approach that the Sherrif of Maricopa County in Arizona deals with crooks.

After hearing of hijinks, the Manager of the "Air Regs" section of the region would call you up, and just tell you to mail your licence in immediately, and if you didn't ..... an RCMP officer would be at your door to collect it.

As Prairie Chicken described, your licence was kept under Beatty's desk blotter until you had learned something. Then you'd have to come to his office and convince him face to face that you were fully aware that you'd screwed up, or engaged in deceit.

You had to do a highly convincing performance of grovelling and snivelling, mixed with copious quantities of promises that he would never ever hear your name again (unless it was to win an award for your contribution to aviation.)

He wasn't an easy mark for a sob story either, nor could he be won over by some tears welling up in a person's eyes.

Its that kind of iron fist in a velvet glove that is required in certain sections of the country with certain operators. There are TC staff ready to do exactly that, but are kept on a very short leash and held back from taking the action they know is needed.

BUT ..... news flash people ..... we live in Canada, not Iran. People have legal rights here, and the very first time a Transport Canada Inspector seized a pilot's licence or decided to grab an AOC off the wall and walked back to the office to wait for the operator to "smarten up," and all hell would break loose in the Dept of Justice when the lawsuits start to fly. Try that with an irascible personality like "Buffalo Bill" and see how far you'd get in "cleaning up the industry."

Further, posters here would be in near street riot fanatical status over TC being heavy-handed, there would be page after page of what a fabulous operator "Buffalo Bill" was, the company was "safe" and the regs are an ass.

So .... checkmate and stalemate, and things carry on the way they were and always has been.

[Prairie Chicken]

Single swine herder, yes, I was referring to RO Beattie, and your description is accurate although you did miss the bull whip in his office which he brought out occasionally to snap at staff. I hadn't heard he'd passed, but he must have done so at a ripe old age.

And the rest of your post is accurate as well.

[tallyho]

If the largest percentage of accidents are happening in the 703 world then it seems pretty obvious that we/they/TC should be looking at the difference between 704/705 and 703 and what makes them safer. 704 operators pretty much run exclusively IFR, although not all I know. The planes are generally better equipped. The pilots are generally more experienced and better trained (sim trained as opposed to 5 hrs sitting beside the CP/trg guy). Flight tests are every year as opposed to every two years. Many others I know.

All of these differences instituted at 703 operators would improve safety. Would it increase costs? Of course it would, but maybe that would help weed out some of the two bit operators.

Scrap 703 OC`s, give VFR OC`s. If you want to carry passengers IFR you have to meet 704 standards. I bet the good 703 operators meet most of the requirements anyway.

[Liquid Charlie]

SSW naked the major points - unfortunately most 703 operations are like a dose of the clap- they run themselves - the other interesting thing is this comes out when the new fdt legislation is in the works - I'm thinking that 703 is going to have the highest impact from this and a little more ammo is always good to reinforce the proposed changes. - just thinking -

[B-rad]

There was a comment on another thread that I thought would be a good suggestion in regards to Wx with 703 which I feel is a weakness. It was from the thread about the Air Tindi flight into FZDZ the other day. http://www.avcanada.ca/forums2/viewtopi ... 4&t=100095

everything is dumped on the pilot's shoulders which increases the possibility of something going sideways -- you have to ask yourself if this would have happened if they were using level 2 dispatch system -- an extra set of eyes and someone who is paid to watch and read the wx could have prevented this -- I for one think there needs to be some major changes in how 703 operates and even 704 and 705 for those carriers who operate under self dispatch system --

I agree that this could help improve safety of 703 if some of the decision making was shared and not all burdened by the Pilot who in 703 is often doing everything on their own from getting pax ready, fueling the plane, loading the plane, etc etc and trying to stay on a time schedule. The more you tasks you have to accomplish while trying to maintain a schedule, then the harder it becomes to maintain the quality and safety takes a hit as well.