SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
A consultant to Buffalo Airways says the reason its airplanes are still grounded and its budget still bleeding money is that Transport Canada doesn't want Joe McBryan at the helm.

Buffalo Joe McBryan sits in a Douglas DC-3, one of his favourite planes to fly, earlier this year. DTI Training executive training co-ordinator Sol Taboada said his company was hired to help Buffalo lift its suspension from Transport Canada and McBryan has walked away in response to the federal transportation concerns about its operation. - NNSL file photo

DTI Training executive Sol Taboada, a consultant working with the airliner to try to get its planes back in the air, told Yellowknifer his impression of Transport Canada was that the federal department wanted to keep the senior McBryan out of the cockpit and the company, even though Rod McBryan, Joe's eldest son, is currently Buffalo's accountable executive.

As a result, Taboada said, Joe signed a letter stating he would walk away from the company as the owner.

"His days running the company are gone," said Taboada.

Buffalo Airways general manager Bruce Jonasson confirmed Taboada's comments.

"Absolutely," he said "(Joe) signed the letter that he was not going to interfere with anything."

Buffalo Airways aircraft have been grounded since Nov. 30, following a 10-day notice of suspension from Transport Canada issued on Nov. 20.

Taboada said Buffalo hired his company to oversee its corrective action plans prior to this.

"They had 10 days to answer this thing and correct it otherwise they were going to go into a suspension," said Taboada.

While Taboada said Transport Canada as the national regulator for civil aviation and has the authority to change these timelines, he said he finds the department's behaviour unusual.

"To me, if whatever they were claiming there was true and so egregious it required a suspension then why wasn't it an immediate suspension?" he asked.

Taboada said usual Transport Canada procedure would give 30 days to fix the problems before a suspension.

"I guess it wasn't so bad they would suspend them immediately but it was too bad they couldn't give them 30 days," he said. "I don't really quite understand the logic there."

When asked why Transport Canada had not yet responded to Buffalo Airways' proposed corrective action, regional spokesperson Amber Wonko told Yellowknifer yesterday in an e-mail her department has been in continuous contact with Buffalo since Dec. 9.

"Buffalo will be informed of the results of (Transport Canada)'s assessment upon completion," she stated.

In regards to Buffalo being given a 10-day notice of suspension, Wonko stated several of the alleged deficiencies in Buffalo's operational control system had been identified during previous inspections and the federal department used various enforcement measures such as monetary penalties to encourage Buffalo Airways' compliance.

"These tools were not strong enough to convince the company to significantly improve its safety record," she added.

Tabaoda said his company was hired because 10 years ago it helped write the quality assurance requirements and train hundreds of Transport Canada inspectors, he said, "so that inspectors across the country would deliver the same type of criteria."

According to Taboada, his company trained more than 1,000 inspectors and office workers.

"We're the ones who wrote the book," he said.

The problems at Buffalo, Taboada said, were primarily concerning inaccuracies and insufficient documentation of standard procedures.

"I'll be honest with you, Buffalo had a problem with documenting anything," he said. "Not saying they didn't do it but they couldn't prove it."

The first thing Taboada and his company did was bring in a third-party "gatekeeper" to personally oversee everything Buffalo did before a flight.

"Our feeling was that if we installed this third-party person there, it would be an assurance to the regulator that flights today were being done in compliance," he said, adding that long-term corrective action would also still need to be figured out.

Taboada said Transport Canada denied them this course of action.

"And they didn't even give us a reason at the time, though I know the reason now," he said. "So we were dumbfounded. It was something we had never seen before."

Taboada said one of Transport Canada's main issues was whether "Buffalo" Joe McBryan would still be flying DC-3 planes to Hay River if the company's suspension was lifted.

"Really the question they were asking is how are you going to control Joe on that flight?" he said of the follow-up phone call from a Transport Canada inspector.

In Taboada's opinion, Transport Canada's findings about Buffalo regarding safety and lack of or insufficient documentation were completely valid.

"But I don't think they're worth the suspension," he said.

The consultant said he feels the federal department is being slow in its response.

"We should have heard back a week and a half ago," he said in an interview on Dec. 18.

According to Taboada, Buffalo has responded to all the items on the notice of suspension from Transport Canada and the Transportation Safety Board's reports.

"Transport Canada is not following their own procedure," he said. "They're not following the procedure to allow a company to heal itself."

Taboada said Transport Canada also still has not responded to Buffalo's corrective action plans for more than two weeks.

"It stinks right now," he said.

Financially, Taboada estimated Buffalo is bleeding money on charter companies to fulfil its passenger, charter and cargo flights. He estimated with the company's roughly 100 employees, it's at least $500,000 in losses so far, plus extended costs.

"Every day it's $50,000," he said.

Jonasson said it cost the company approximately US $70,000 to hire DTI and the financial losses to the company in lost businesses and salaries so far is $1 million.

He also believes Transport Canada has a vendetta against Buffalo Joe.

"It's disgusting," he said.

However, Jonasson said the timing makes it especially difficult for Joe and the McBryan family to try and stem the losses.

"It's a family-run business," he said. "He'd rather go bankrupt than lay off people around this time of year."

As for the years the Northern airline was featured on the reality television show Ice Pilots, Taboada said it was both a great thing and a terrible thing for how it chronicled Buffalo Joe's disdain for the federal transportation department.

"I think it's a vendetta issue," Taboada said. "People know (Buffalo Airways) around the world. I think it's a shame what's happened. The punishment doesn't fit the crime."

As to the allegation one of the main issues about Buffalo Airways having their suspension lifted is the level of involvement of "Buffalo Joe" going forward, Wonko said Transport Canada's concerns were about aviation safety and the company's poor aviation record.

"The onus is on Buffalo Airways to provide Transport Canada with a comprehensive plan that will address the safety concerns identified in order for the suspension to be terminated," she stated.

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