Something's Going On

"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."
Transportation Safety Board Canada report

"In large airports such as Toronto, they'll have precision approaches at both ends of the runway. But some of the smaller airports, including Halifax, don't have a precision approach on all the runways."
"...There's a cost to maintaining the precision approaches and it's a risk analysis that they do."
"It's a catch-22; NavCanada says, 'We'll put these approaches in if you spend the money on updating your aircraft', and then the airlines say, 'Well, we're not going to update the aircraft until these approaches are in place. We'd like to see it sped up."
Captain Dan Adamus, Canadian board president, Air Line Pilots Association International

CTV News

An air disaster was narrowly averted at Halifax International airport on the weekend when an Air Canada plane crashed while approaching the runway. There had been a snowstorm and the plane had circled the airport awaiting clearance to land in the hope that visibility would be improved, the snowstorm abating. When it was given permission to land, the plane came in too low, hitting hydro lines supplying electricity to the airport, and it crash-landed while approaching the runway.

The impact caused it to lose an engine, but seconds earlier it had lost its nosecone and landing gear. The plane's body survived the impact, with its 133 passengers fortunate enough to be able to evacuate the downed plane, as a fire did not eventuate, sparks having been cushioned by snowy conditions on the tarmac. Of the passengers, 25 sustained slight injuries occasioning a brief visit to hospital. The frightened passengers no doubt felt their time had come.

With, no doubt, very vivid thoughts of the Germanwings 320 Airbus, flight 9425 being flown directly and deliberately by its co-pilot, into the summit of a mountain in the French Alps, killing all 150 aboard. Their fright had a relieved and happy conclusion. The Transportation Safety Board has been warning of the potential for runway accidents at Canada's airports for the past five years or so. Likely with reason, since runway safety is a top "watch-list" concern.

Nav Canada is currently in the process of bringing in new GPS technology to ensure that landings are safer on runways that haven't been provided with precision approaches, though not all aircraft are equipped to use that technology. Captain Adamus, involved in commercial flights since 1985, feels some airports in Canada do not yet comply with runway standards as set out by the International Civil Aviation Organization requiring a set amount of added space at the end of a runway.

Nothing is ever really simple, however. Ron Coleman, an aviation consultant with Canadian Aviation Safety Consultants with his own ten years of experience in leading plane crash investigations in Canada and abroad has his own take. The pilots flying Air Canada Flight 625 which crashed 335 metres short of the main runway, would have had ample warning they were flying dangerously low.

A voice-activated "enhanced ground proximity warning system" and a radio altimeter giving precise data of how many feet above ground they are flying is part of the equipment of such a plane. The A320, he pointed out was below the "glide slope", the path a plane properly approaching a landing strip takes, since it severed power lines and hit the "antennae array" on airport property.

"[I]t's a good possibility the approach lights and the runway lights would have been extinguished, which would have made their perception of their landing considerably changed. Those cues would be gone. What we're talking about here in large measure is what was going on in that cockpit", said Mr. Coleman.

"I don't know which one was flying (pilot or co-pilot], but one of them is flying and one of them is observing and looking for the runway. But he's also responsible for making sure that they don't violate their altitude. Something's going on here, but it'll be on the voice recorder."

And so, unsurprisingly, there's a class action suit against Air Canada in the offing...to be filed with the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia.