Dead pilot's father irate report into crash not released

[Widow]

Dead pilot's father irate report into crash not released
Keith Fraser, The Province
Published: Sunday, January 07, 2007

The father of the pilot killed in a crash near Port Alberni nearly a year ago says it's "scandalous" details from a report on the tragedy have not yet been released.

As a family member of pilot Edward Huggett, Jonathan Huggett was given a chance to review a draft report prepared by the Transportation Safety Board of Canada.

The dad says he's banned by law from revealing its conclusions, but claims the report, which he reviewed in November and responded to at length last month, raises issues "fundamental to public safety" in Canada.

He says that, last February, he filed a request through Transport Canada for documents such as maintenance reports and ramp checks, but has gotten nowhere.

"That to me is a scandalous situation. They'll tell you all sorts of wonderful stories about how they have to tread carefully. But it's frankly more luck than anything else that there hasn't been a repeat accident, given what I know about the circumstances."

Edward Huggett, 25, died when his Sonicblue Airways Cessna 208 Caravan plunged into mountainous terrain 11 kilometres southwest of Port Alberni on Jan. 21, 2006. Also killed were Braedon Hale, 3, and a second passenger, Terry Douglas of St. Albert, Alta. Five passengers survived.

Huggett's comments came as his son's common-law wife, Kathryn Wenonah Hartford, filed a lawsuit in B.C. Supreme Court against four defendants similar to a lawsuit filed by the family of Braedon Hale last May.

The families claim the main cause of the crash was engine failure and that air-traffic controllers gave out incorrect information.

Bill Yearwood of the safety board said that if there was a sufficient threat to public safety an interim recommendation would have been released by the board.

"As investigators, we forward up to the board issues and they decide whether it should be a letter to [Transport Canada] or a publicly released recommendation. If it's critical enough, they would release it as a public interim recommendation."

Rod Nelson, a spokesman for Transport Canada, said the agency had responded to Huggett's request and that any appeals for additional information would go to the federal privacy commissioner. Huggett said he is awaiting a response from the commissioner.

kfraser@png.canwest.com

© The Vancouver Province 2007



Mr. Huggett et.al. are not alone. I challenge anyone to find an official report or MENTION of C-GAQW which crash-landed near Quadra February 28, 2005 ... one man wearing a floater coat drowned (slowly) while four others aboard were never found.

[Cat Driver]

Widow, it is hopeless.

The incompetency within the regulator is only exceeded by the army of lawyers they have protecting the incompetent.

Here in your region you have only to look at the example of what you have as R.D.C.A.

[ei ei owe]

Widow, it is hopeless.

Never hopeless, just too expensive to pursue unless you've got your own mint.

[gapper]

I hope that the father is reading this, because if I could ,I would hug you!! Somehow, sometime this VFR business has to face some issues before more needless deaths occur. One simple thing I can do, is to not fly for lying pieces of shit, that expects pilots to go out overweight and in bad weather. I can also ask fellow pilots to do the same. The culture of "If you don't do it...we have a line-up of pilots that will!!" has to stop. That falls at our feet to stop it NOW. Something I have witnessed lately of the "new age bush-pilot", is they don't know the "Code" or refuse to acknoledge it...That "CODE" being.. If he turns around, I turn around. Thank-you Sir, and keep fighting those lazy bastards!! As my hero Red Green says..Remember fellas..were all in this together!!

[the_professor]

If the culture at TC is as bad as some claim, and has been bad for as long as some claim, why hasn't someone given the ammo to a news organization for an inside report? Have MPs been contacted? Have the multitude of Transport Ministers over the years been contacted? Are there no Transport employees, out of the tens of thousands of them, who are willing to lend a hand in such an effort?

[Widow]

Widow, it is hopeless.

Never hopeless, just too expensive to pursue unless you've got your own mint.

Any idea where I can get my own mint??? I'm not giving up either.

[56BY111]

to the father: i support your efforts 100%.
but this part makes me nervous:

The families claim the main cause of the crash was engine failure and that air-traffic controllers gave out incorrect information.

I am not trolling here, but simply wondering: why go after ATC? They do not knowingly or willingly endanger anyone.
Did they give out wrong weather information? There are only two surface weather sources along the route: tofino and nanaimo. (port alberni auto used to be available through FSS). Any other info would have been pilot weather reports.
Did they give out wrong terrain information? They had a matter of only minutes to deal with the situation once they were informed of the engine failure. . .
It doesn't make sense.

[rotorfloat]

56B, I think it was because atc may have vectored the pilot towards one airfield when another one was closer. It's buried in the forums here.

[V1]

I support Mr. Hugget in getting the TSB report released.
Not that many things have changed at the south terminal of YVR. Transport has laid off since there hasn't been any fatalities in the last 9 months, but that doesn't mean people are still flying hunks of junk, and making poor decisions knowingly.

[86583]

I'm at a bit of a loss here, this post is about releasing an accident report on an A/C crash...anybody that is in the industry knows the reason for the crash was an internal component failure in the engine, period, full stop..what does this have to do with overloading, vfr, hunks of junk etc etc that I'm seeing in some of the posts...if my memory serves me correctly the aircraft in question was not overloaded, was flying on an ifr flight plan, the pilot was properly licenced, icing was not an issue...did the ATC person try and vector to port alberni when another airport was closer? the only other airport I know that could have been closer was tofino, the departure airport, man I would think that would have been a tough call...so would all you armchair quarter backs living in your perfect worlds please point out to me what I'm missing here...I don't understand what the big secret will be in the accident report...

[Widow]

I don't understand what the big secret will be in the accident report...

“When an accident occurs, often the pilot is the only one held accountable. While the pilot may be at fault for having made a poor decision or series of decisions that led to the accident, other questions have to be asked... Were there any systemic problems in the company? What was management’s role in the accident? What did management do to prevent the accident? What is management doing to prevent a recurrence? Management must be accountable for the safety of the day-to-day operations. When management is held responsible for an accident, they will become more proactive in promoting safe operating practices.” Immediately followed by: “SR 30 - Recommend the Transportation Safety Board evaluate the management factors that contributed to the accident during the accident investigation.”

and

"SR 61 - Recommend Transport Canada provide more regulatory compliance presence, especially in northern and remote areas.
Transport Canada was also criticized for not conducting follow up of audit findings. When audit findings are not rectified by the air operator, the unsatisfactory operating condition continues and often the deficiencies are noted in the subsequent audit.
SR 62 - Recommend Transport Canada ensure all audit follow-up is completed."

may have something to do with it. Uneducated guess.

[CD]

Source of Widow's quotes:

TP 13158 - Safety of Air Taxi Operations (SATOPS) - Final Report

[86583]

okay so I ask again what has an engine failure got to do with the mind set of a company... did the engine quite because the pilot was maybe over worked, under payed etc etc...in my experience the TSB will try and avoid those issue's as being irelevent to the accident i.e. maybe gloss over them...because the engine was overhauled by an outside source, the failure was not attributed to maintenance that was or was not done by the operating company's amo so there fore that part was out of their control.....I think you folks are hoping for great sonic blue/ management bashing coming out of this report, I think your going to be dissapointed when it is released....

[Widow]

Source of Widow's quotes:

TP 13158 - Safety of Air Taxi Operations (SATOPS) - Final Report

Thanks CD!

[Widow]

I think you folks are hoping for great sonic blue/ management bashing coming out of this report, I think your going to be dissapointed when it is released....

Only one way to find out.

[. .]

I think you folks are hoping for great sonic blue/ management bashing coming out of this report, I think your going to be dissapointed when it is released....

If the report comes back and fails to state the very obvious it would truly not be worth the paper it was written on. Regency/sonic blue/whatever other names they tried to hide under/ lost their right to operate commercially because from the very top down they were are broken company. Pushing pilots to fly broken planes, overweight, in crummy weather, into the rocks, while paying for all their training and working for free. It's a small wonder that more of the regency planes didn't get balled up.

[86583]

thats my point endless, this report will be about a specific accident i.e. the crash of a cessna caravan due to an engine failure etc etc pilot was legal, the company was legal, the weather was not an issue...go to the TSB website and read some of the final drafts you will not find anything about the company unless there is a direct connection between the company and the crash i.e. the company forced the pilot to take off over gross and that caused the crash...this accident had no direct connection between the company and the crash...you can't fault the TSB if there is no comment about the company in the report, to say it's not worth the paper it's written on just shows your lack of knowledge about an accident report...this report has to deal in facts, not personal feelings, rumour, inuendo...sorry if you don't feel vindication when the report is published

[Wixel Pimp]

I support Mr. Hugget in getting the TSB report released.
Not that many things have changed at the south terminal of YVR. Transport has laid off since there hasn't been any fatalities in the last 9 months, but that doesn't mean people are still flying hunks of junk, and making poor decisions knowingly.

Plenty has changed at South Terminal, especially in regards to airlines flying to CYAZ. Know your facts before you start beaking about something you are obviously clueless about.

[Widow]

...you can't fault the TSB if there is no comment about the company in the report, to say it's not worth the paper it's written on just shows your lack of knowledge about an accident report...

Oh I can ... it is part of their job to assess all factors ... and was underscored by the above comments in Satops.

View this previous thread for a beautiful example of a TSB "letter to the coroner" (we're just a class 5 investigation, we weren't going to get a report)

http://www.avcanada.ca/forums2/viewtopi ... highlight=

Loved ones are seldom looking for "vindication", just answers .... truthfull answers.

[marktheone]

I hope that you get your answers widow. Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't the round engine quit as they sometimes do though? If it was a catastrophic failure of an engine component does that relate to management to you? Of course assuming that the engines were being maintainted properly.

Mark

[Widow]

I hope that you get your answers widow. Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't the round engine quit as they sometimes do though? If it was a catastrophic failure of an engine component does that relate to management to you? Of course assuming that the engines were being maintainted properly.

Mark

Actually, the engine is still on the bottom of the ocean since nobody except the families seems to care to find out exactly what happened that day. If you look at the original TSB letter, they imply there were no indications of engine problem. It cannot be done for the $10,000 offered by Transport Canada and the families exhausted their funds just finding the darn plane that the officials would have found if they'd looked where the witnesses told them to in the first place.

Do YOU want to know what really happened that day?

And how does what we believe happened relate to management? Beyond the issues of the lack of radio in the dispatch office and whether the floats were even airworthy that day? Well, do you know anything about the maintenance of R-985 cylinders? I do. I've done quite a bit of study. I know about overboosting, I know about over-torquing, I know about super-tuning, i know about inspecting the hold-down studs per the Pratt&Whitney AD 56-06-02.

http://www8.landings.com/cgi-bin/get_fi ... 06-02.html.

I know that witnesses in the know claim the airline was known to decline having necessary inspections and repairs done because they could not afford it and that the AMO permitted this. No one has turned over the maintenance log books (or copies of them despite Access to Info requests), even though the craft now belongs to the families.

All of these things should have been addressed in the TSB "letter to the coroner". And despite continuous calls for the necessity of having that engine up, including comments made to the coroner and RCMP officers by the 2nd TSB investigator on November 16, 2006. And we are still a class 5 investigation, no official investigation for cause.

[Mitch Cronin]

Widow.... My hat is off to you! You are an inspiration ... and you warm the heart of this married man... Thank you.

[marktheone]

If the family owns the aircaft (what's left) the book should come with it.

[trey kule]

le professeur wrote

If the culture at TC is as bad as some claim, and has been bad for as long as some claim, why hasn't someone given the ammo to a news organization for an inside report? Have MPs been contacted? Have the multitude of Transport Ministers over the years been contacted? Are there no Transport employees, out of the tens of thousands of them, who are willing to lend a hand in such an effort?

Let me give you a personal anedote. some years back I was being shit on by an acting type at TC. I had a lawyer deal with it. He got no where.I did write the minister. It was referred to the deputy minister, and the nice lady told me to @#$! off in just about that many words...and then referred me back to the person I had filed the complaint about...
Did it ever get resolved. Well it seems that there are some people in TC who felt much the same way about the guy as I did, and they did much to resolve the problem, though not the bitterness. As of a year ago, the little jerk is still in an acting position at the top of one of the regional piles.

In case you have missed it professuer, you will notice a little bittnerness from many of us oldsters here. If you point out to TC an error in their ways, or dare to stand up to one of the little Nazi's that seem to be the norm in enforcement and inspection now, you will pay...and no one will help.

They have done a remarkable job of brain washing all the new pilots...TC GOOD. TC SAFE....DO WHAT TC SAYS. TC NEVER WRONG....DONT DO WHAT TC SAYS AND YOU WILL PAY.....

I suspect that eventually the pendulum will swing and there will be a big clearing out of middle and top management in TC,,,at least I am hopeful,
In the meantime I will continue to fly on a Uk license outside Canada.

[PARADISE]

Bravo Widow, you are fighting the good fight! Don't listen to Cat Driver he thinks anything he couldn't do is impossible. You have an uphill battle forsure but don't give up, the public and the aviation communuty is behind you, and you are doing a great service to both.