Canadian North failed to report incident
Transportation Safety Board investigating plane's loss of control in December
Simon Whitehouse
Northern News Services
Published Friday, July 4, 2014
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
The Transportation Safety Board is examining an incident of a Canadian North plane losing control last December after the airline failed to report the incident promptly.
According to John Tavernini, senior technical investigator of the Transportation Safety Board of Canada - a federal investigative body that deals with marine, pipeline, air, and rail safety - Canadian North did not report an incident where a plane experienced an uncommanded turn to the left shortly after liftoff on Dec. 17.
For about 20 to 30 seconds, it was believed the Boeing 737-300 had lost control. The pilot involved in the incident was forced to lower the nose to get more air speed before the aircraft returned to normal. The plane had been departing Fort MacKay and heading to Edmonton carrying 133 passengers and six crew members.
On June 12, Canadian North staff realized that the incident had gone unreported, as is requred by the Transportation Safety Regulations, said Val St. Germain, the airline's director of flight operations. The incident was then reported to TSB at that time.
"Typically it is a reportable issue and under the act they should have reported it immediately," said Tavernini. "Their system failed and it was missed inadvertently. They found it on their own and corrected it as soon as they became aware of the oversight. "
Both the airline company and the TSB are ruling out any mechanical issues because the plane was examined for three days following the incident before being returned to normal usage. Both are speculating that the malfunction had something to do with ice contamination or refreezing of an item on the aircraft.
According to St. Germain, the airline also did an extensive investigation and sent data, including the pilot's report, an animated simulation of the event, a weather report and all e-mails surrounding the incident to Boeing. The manufacturer was unable to come up with a concrete answer as to what might have caused the loss of control.
Since being out of commission for the three days, the plane has been operable without any issues, he added.
"The concern here is that they had an uncommanded roll and we don't know what brought that on at this point in time," said Tavernini "We have a couple of ideas but really nothing factual that we can report. The weather might have done it or an anti-icing fluid failure."
St. Germain said Canadian North flies out of Yellowknife about three to four times per day, but there should be absolutely no concern about safety based on the incident. He added that the airline should be acknowledged for having discovered that the issue had not been reported.
"We did an audit of the investigation and found we hadn't informed the TSB," said St. Germain.
"This wasn't dug up by the regulatory body or by sleuthing by an investigative journalist, it was done by us. We saw that we hadn't told the TSB so we told them immediately. "
Tavernini said he did not know when an investigation might be completed as the TSB is still obtaining data information from the airline.
