John Barker
Northern News Services

Inuvik (Sep 02/02) - Transport Canada has partially restored the air operators certificate that allows Arctic Wings Ltd. to fly.

Company president Carl Falsnes said the month-long suspension cost his company more than $1 million in lost revenue and he is considering legal action against Transport Canada.

The certificate was suspended July 26 for unspecified records-keeping violations. Kate Fletcher, the Edmonton-based regional manager of commercial and business aviation for Transport Canada, refused to specify what was wrong, but said the kind of records their inspector would look at include personnel records, training logs, flight operators' hours and the qualifications of company personnel.

Neither the inspection nor suspension involved the maintenance or condition of aircraft, she said.

Fletcher said the air operators certificate is being reinstated on a "progressive" basis, meaning Arctic Wings can only fly under visual flight rules (VFR) and is still prohibited from flying under instrument flight rules (IFR). VFR is suitable for fair-weather daytime flying, while IFR is essential for less optimum conditions. The company hopes to have its IFR rating reinstated by the end of this week.

Before the suspension, Arctic Wings was permitted to fly under both conditions.

Fletcher acknowledged that among the range of sanctions Transport Canada could impose for such violations -- starting with a reprimand or warning -- a suspension of the air operators certificate was on the high end.

"It's a significant event," she said.

Fletcher said the July 22 inspection and audit that led to the suspension was a routine but unannounced inspection.

Falsnes, however, said there was nothing routine about it. "They (Transport Canada) had seven inspectors here July 2 going through our records. They didn't have problems with anything. One inspector came July 22 and had problems with everything."

"We had two audits less than six months previous to that and we cleared those with flying colours," he said.

Ironically, Falsnes said, the company had invited the inspector that had problems with their records up from Edmonton to do a flight test of one of their commercial pilots. While in Inuvik, he decided to exercise his authority and discretion to go back into the records. Falsnes blames a "disgruntled former employee" for complaining to the inspector. He admits there were errors in the company's record-keeping, "but these were mistakes committed by former employees several years ago over things that don't even matter any more."

Arctic Wings has 20 employees, seven aircraft and flies more than 100 passengers a day, plus freight. It offered scheduled service to Fort McPherson and Aklavik. It also flies to Tuktoyaktuk, mainly during the summer tourist season, and does charters.

"We had people stranded everywhere," he said. "There were people from Germany stranded on the Horton River with no communications for three days."

Falsnes said the Northern Air Transportation Association will be looking into the situation.

"The feeling is that if it can happen to us, who have a good reputation, it can happen to anyone of them," he said.

"We were found guilty until proven innocent, and even if there were minor deficiencies we were not unsafe."

Falsnes said he has retained a lawyer with an eye to taking legal action against Transport Canada.

"I haven't finished with these guys (Transport Canada) yet....What they did was outwardly wrong."

-- with files from Terry Halifax