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Improved air safety to come with a cost Small carriers to incur expenses by installing new required equipmentPaul Bickford Northern News Services Published Monday, July 9, 2012
On July 4, Denis Lebel, minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities, announced private turbine-powered and commercial airplanes with six or more passenger seats will have to be equipped with the terrain awareness and warning system (TAWS). Terry Harrold, co-owner and president of Fort Smith-based Northwestern Air Lease Ltd., said the company has known about the regulatory change for months and has been gearing up for it. "We'll have to spend about $100,000 per airplane for our Jetstreams," he said. The company has four 19-passenger Jetstreams left to do. It has already installed TAWS on two Jetstreams. "We'll have to borrow money to do it and it will mean the rates will have to go up," Harrold said. "I haven't figured out exactly by how much, of course, but we have to pay for it somehow. If we have to put out $400,000, it's going to be a considerable amount of money to pay back to the bank with interest." The company also has to install the system on its nine-passenger Beech 99, although that will not be as expensive. Harrold said TAWS will increase safety to a certain degree because it gives pilots an indication of how close their planes are to the ground, especially on approach to an airport. Lebel praised the safety enhancement with the new regulations. "While Canada has one of the safest aviation systems in the world, we are committed to the continuous improvement of aviation safety," he said in a news release. "Terrain awareness and warning systems will help save lives." The system provides acoustic and visual alerts to a flight crew when an aircraft is likely to collide with terrain, water or obstacles - a situation that can happen when visibility is low or weather is poor. This gives the flight crew enough time to take evasive action. The new regulations are also expected to increase safety for small aircraft, which fly into remote wilderness or mountainous areas where the danger of flying into terrain is highest. Under the new regulations, operators will have two years to equip their airplanes with TAWS. The new regulations will replace the current requirement for a ground proximity warning system (GPWS) in the Canadian Aviation Regulations. TAWS gives the flight crew much earlier acoustic and visual warnings. In August of last year, a First Air jet crashed on approach to Resolute Bay, Nunavut, killing 12 people. That plane - a Boeing 737-200 - was equipped with a GPWS. The regulatory change for TAWS had been discussed for years since being proposed by the Transportation Safety Board of Canada. It won't affect floatplanes operating under visual flight rules or helicopters. It is estimated the new regulation will save approximately $215 million over 10 years by preventing deaths, serious injuries and material damage. Stephen Nourse, executive director of the Northern Air Transport Association (NATA), said larger companies have mostly had TAWS for a number of years. "Who it is going to affect a lot is the smaller carriers," Nourse said. "Now their installations aren't quite as expensive, but they could still be $30,000 to $40,000. So it's not a cheap system by the time you get it installed." It will affect planes such as Twin Otters, Caravans and King Airs. Nourse said it will be an economic hit for airlines that will have to be passed on to customers. "There's no other source at the end of the day," he said. "It's either the passengers or freight." Nourse doesn't expect companies to go out of business because of the new expense. "I don't think it will put them out of business, because everybody else is doing it. So it's not like they have to incur costs and somebody else doesn't," he said. Nourse said TAWS is a wonderful technology and will enhance safety. "No doubt about it."
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