Proceedings of the Subcommittee on
Transportation Safety
Standing Senate Committee on
Transport and Communications
Issue 3 - Evidence - Afternoon sitting
YELLOWKNIFE, Monday, December 2, 1996
Upon resuming.
The Deputy Chairman: Senator Forrestall, do have a question, or do you want to hear a little more from the witnesses before you ask questions?
Senator Forrestall: No. I, first of all, wanted to express our appreciation for their patience and understanding and ask them if they could talk for a minute or two about abuse of substances and whether or not it is a problem in the north, whether it is a problem in flying.
Perhaps just to deal with it generally, is there any need for voluntary testing or random mandatory testing? Perhaps it is not a problem at all, and if it is not, you might be able to tell us that.
Mr. Douglas: I would say it is certainly not a general problem, but it is something that we are very aware of.
As I mentioned this morning, we are very interested in human factors, and one of the things that is emphasized in the human factors training is being aware of where you may see changes in behaviour and what you should do when you detect this change in behaviour. We do have programs available to rehabilitate people or to do whatever is necessary to ensure that safety is not eroded because of this. I do not think there is a big problem although do have instances from time to time.
Senator Forrestall: The program of help that is in place, is that administered by NATA?
Mr. Douglas: It is not administered by NATA, but it is coordinated by NATA, and the operators themselves have safety programs to be aware and vigilant of this.
Senator Forrestall: Is it a program that has had the approval of Transport Canada or Health and Welfare?
Mr. Douglas: We have had civil aviation medical people involved in developing human factors courses for this and occupational safety and health programs for this.
Senator Forrestall: And it is a program that is adaptable to the peculiar needs of the north and seems to be working?
Mr. Douglas: Yes, I would say it is working.
Senator Forrestall: Perhaps it is less apparent up here, but with the advent of NAV CANADA, have you noticed any changes yet, or do you anticipate that there will be any changes in their sphere of activity?
Mr. Douglas: We have not noticed any changes at all. John Crichton attended our annual general meeting and made a presentation. He has given us assurance that there will not be any changes in the level of service in the north without full consultation with the Northern Air Transport Association and the governments involved.
We have a lot of trust in John Crichton. He is a founding member of the Northern Air Transport Association. He is well aware of the north through his experiences with First Air, and we trust him and believe what he has said.
Senator Forrestall: That is refreshing. You have noticed no changes?
Mr. Douglas: No, we have not since NAV CANADA has taken over. Mind you, NAV CANADA only took over November 1. I am sure there will not be any changes without full consultation.
Senator Forrestall: The other area that gives me concern and, I am sure, other members of the committee is the impact of funding reductions on safety. Given government restraints and the need to do things just as well but differently, have you noticed if there has been any impact on safety?
Mr. Douglas: We have always been very concerned about the downsizing in flight service stations and automation. We are on top of that, though. That has certainly been a concern, and there has been some impact. I think we have corrected the deficiencies in a number of cases.
We believe that there are things Transport Canada could do to reduce its costs and actually improve safety, as I mentioned in my presentation. We feel that Transport's role should be monitoring and delegation as much as possible to competent companies in industry with more check pilot authorities and more portability of these authorities. Also, Transport Canada could do spot checks less expensively than they are doing now.
Senator Forrestall: Do you mean that Transport can do them or should be doing them?
Mr. Douglas: I think Transport Canada should delegate pilot proficiency checks, instrument rides and things of this nature. It is happening, but very slowly. It could be expedited.
Senator Forrestall: Is there not a danger in smaller organizations of a conflict of interest when they are doing in house the very sensitive type of work that is involved?
Mr. Douglas: That is true. There are ways, though, to compensate for that, and it can certainly be done without conflict of interest.
As has been mentioned before, when a person gets a commercial pilot's licence on a helicopter, Transport does not give them a PPC at the same time. That could be combined.
I think the president has comments to make on the issue of PPCs.
Mr. Wood: As far as the designated authority for PPC, the onus is on the carrier to do the recurrent training, and the PPC is a second check to see that the recurrent training is done. Recurrent training implies that you need recurrency, whereas when you are issued a commercial pilot licence, there is a requirement to do a PPC immediately after you do your commercial ride, which is redundant. A PPC should not be required in the first year, because you have just showed proficiency.
Senator Forrestall: Do you think it would be all right, then, once you have done your first ride and passed that test, to wait a year before you have a proficiency check?
Mr. Wood: It makes sense to me that if you pass the commercial ride, you have demonstrated proficiency. You have been issued a commercial licence, so you should go 12 months before you have to prove that you have retained your proficiency.
Senator St. Germain: Is this what you were speaking of when you were referring to wanting training simplified?
Mr. Douglas: Not necessarily. That is part of it.
Senator St. Germain: If it is not, I am sorry. Carry on, sir.
Senator Forrestall: I will carry on. This is fascinating.
Mr. Wood: They are just quirks in the regulations. They are minor points, but they cost operators a lot of extra money, and they are not really proving anything or contributing, necessarily, to safety. These are just issues, minor points caught in the regulations.
Senator Forrestall: The operator pays for that ride, does he not, that proficiency check?
Mr. Wood: That is right. In some cases, the student has trained with an organization and has been given a commercial licence, but the licence does not allow him to fly for hire or reward, because he has to first get a PPC. He has a commercial licence that is really invalid until an operator takes him or Transport Canada gives him a second PPC. So it is costing more money, and it is really not doing anything for safety.
Senator Forrestall: I have missed something somewhere along the line. An operator foots the bill for a young person to get his licence because he wants him on board. The young person has his licence, but cannot fly for reward until he has that proficiency ride. I would have thought quite the opposite; that the proficiency ride may be redundant. Maybe you do not need it. Maybe you should get that authorization immediately. Is that what you are suggesting?
Mr. Wood: Rod is saying that if a helicopter pilot is trained on a Bell 206 and gets his commercial ride on a 206, he should have a PPC on a 206.
Mr. Douglas: That is right. He should at least have a PPC on that 206, because he has demonstrated to a Transport Canada inspector that he can fly it safely.
Senator Forrestall: That is interesting. It makes a lot of sense. I had not thought of that.
Mr. Douglas: That is all we want; common sense in the north.
Senator Forrestall: Are there any other areas we have not thought of along these lines?
Mr. Douglas: We can think of some more.
Senator Forrestall: Please be our guests. The more, the merrier.
Thank you for your candidness.
Senator St. Germain: I may be overdramatizing this, but with regard to safety I think that the reduction in flight service stations and their relationship to the CARS facilities and the changeover to AWOS is going to have the largest impact. Have you been given assurances that none of these changes will be made without you first being consulted?
Mr. Douglas: Yes, we have.
Senator St. Germain: By Mr. Crichton?
Mr. Douglas: By John Crichton of NAV CANADA. He is also president of ATAC at this time. He is an experienced northern aviator and he has given us that assurance more than once, and we believe that. We trust him, and I am sure there will be no more changes.
In NATA, we have been very concerned about downsizing and the loss of flight service stations and weather stations, but we feel we are on the right track with NAV CANADA.
Senator St. Germain: With regard to his new requirement of a safety course, there was supposed to have been a safety course taken by those of us who were flying before December 6. Did you have that up here?
Mr. Douglas: Are you talking about a pilot decision-making course to fly in reduced visibility?
Senator St. Germain: This is a requirement that came through for all pilots to take every 24 months. Traditionally, you had your licence as long as you renewed your medical. Now there is a different requirement which is supposed to be related to safety. I speak from experience because I just took it.
I am wondering how this impacted the north.
Mr. Douglas: I do not think that is an impact on NATA. I think you are talking there about private pilots.
Senator St. Germain: Is it strictly for private pilots?
Mr. Douglas: Yes, and we are talking commercial pilots. We are not talking about private pilots. That is a pilot proficiency test for private pilots. Rather than just renewing their medical to have their licence renewed, every couple of years they are supposed to take a check ride or an exam. This does not impact the north. That has to do with private pilots.
Senator St. Germain: Thank you.
Senator Forrestall: Is that proficiency test currently your own expense? How much does it cost you?
Senator St. Germain: It only costs $10. I used to pay $40 for a commercial medical. In addition, you had to pay to have your ECG analyzed. Then they raised the fee for the licence and added a $50 administration fee. By the time you add all these things up, the cost has gone from $40 or $50 to at least $150.
The trouble with Ottawa is that they do not realize how close to the line a lot of people outside of Ottawa have to live. I am sure this is true in Victoria, Edmonton and everywhere. Governments say it is just another $10 here, another $50 there, but we are in a high income tax bracket in this country and by the time the smoke clears there is not that much disposable income left.
Many of the young pilots who come up here do not demand high wages. As you point out, they are interested in pursuing a career and are prepared to work for a little bit less. Therefore, they often do not have the ready available cash. I am wondering whether that has an impact.
Mr. Douglas: That certainly has an impact. That is one of the things I was trying to say this morning. You have a fee added here, you do not know what it is for; another fee added there. Your pilot's licence costs you $150 now instead of $40, and you get fees for service.
There is a concern about NAV CANADA fees. I do not think we will be charged a lot in the north. John Crichton has assured us that the fees will be probably an annual fee and not too large for the small operators, but it is still a concern. Even if it is a small fee, it adds to a heavy economic burden that small operators must bear. The fees for all sorts of services add up.
Senator St. Germain: If a marginal operation is charged every time they want a weather breakdown or they file a flight plan, I believe it will hamper safety, because these people will say, "To hell with it, I am not going to pay $15 or $20." They will possibly try to do without the proper weather information or to find a way around filing a flight plan, or what have you.
Mr. Douglas: That is a valid point. We have brought that concern to NAV CANADA, and I think they are aware of that. We have to watch that because it could happen. If there are charges for these things, people may push the weather or not file a flight plan. They might not make radio calls. That is a good point.
Senator Forrestall: I know you have a great respect for Mr. Crichton, as do most of us. I have not yet been able to see the business plan of NAV CANADA. I would like to see it so that we know a little bit more about how he is going to raise the wherewithal about which Senator St. Germain is talking.
Mr. Douglas: That certainly is a concern. I know that many of our members still have that concern.
Mr. Laserich: Senator, you spoke about Ottawa. People living in Ottawa can jump in a taxi and go to a hospital. There are probably 10 hospitals in the Ottawa area. I have spent about 36 years of my life in Cambridge Bay, 460 miles north of here. There is no hospital there. There is a nursing station. We do med-evacs all through the Kitikmeot and as far north as Resolute, and we bring people down to Yellowknife, which is the closest hospital. You cannot just jump in a taxi and go to the hospital. You have to go great distances.
Senator Forrestall: Can you tell us about med-evac? How many planes are involved? Where are they located? What is your general response time?
Mr. Laserich: We operate out of the Kitikmeot region, with which Senator Adams is familiar. My father has been flying up there for 40 years. About six babies have been born in his airplane.
Senator Forrestall: Aboard the plane?
Mr. Laserich: Yes. It used to take my dad days to do a med-evac. I will give you a good example.
From Cambridge Bay to Pelly Bay in a Single Otter was six or seven hours. With bad weather, you would have to overnight somewhere and come down to Yellowknife. Med-evacs could take days.
Now, we run a Lear out of Cambridge and it is 45 minutes to Pelly Bay. Then from Pelly down to Yellowknife takes an hour and 30 minutes to an hour and 40 minutes, depending on winds. With technology, it is getting better.
There is a med-evac organization here in town. There is one in the Kitikmeot, one in Inuvik, one in Baffin and one in Rankin.
Mr. Antoine talked about how great the CARS are up here. In a sense, the CARS operators work for the scheduled airlines. They go to the scheduled airlines schedule.
If a charter outfit gets a med-evac at 3:00 in the morning, we have to call long distance to Yellowknife to file a flight plan. Then we have to call one of the CARS people at home. If he is out hunting or whatever, you get the weather from the nurse. They get a call out and then you have to get a fuel man. Sometimes the runway lights have been driven over by a grader, so there are no lights and they talk about getting skidoos out for lights.
It is a lot different from doing a med-evac out of Ottawa. It is quite enlightening.
CARS operators get paid quite well for being on call. It is very interesting. We could spend days talking about all kinds of neat med-evacs.
The Deputy Chairman: In response to one point you made, I heard that the municipality in Ottawa is cutting the budget. When people there got sick, they used to called the ambulance. Now, if they are not able to walk, they will have to call a taxi to go to the hospital in Ottawa.
You spoke about dangerous goods. Many prospectors go to outpost camps for a couple of months in the summer. I think the charter businesses have quite a few problems in that regard arising from the regulations of dangerous goods and stuff like that.
I was wondering if you have a little bit more to explain what type of dangerous goods you can put on even a charter plane.
Mr. Douglas: It is almost impossible to do our jobs within the law. We do not like to operate illegally. This is a recognized problem and we hope to get some solutions.
Mr. Wood: This is a problem that we recognized when the regulation first came in. We have had resolutions at NATA and we discuss it with Transport every chance we get. It takes a long time to get people to look at the practical side of issues. Operators in the north have a lot of expertise. Willie Laserich, Paul's father, pioneered the north with Single Otter med-evacs. He is a legend in the north, and he developed a lot of those techniques.
We need the government to recognize the experience that people like Willie have and to use that experience for the benefit of other operators.We need the knowledge and experience of the north to be recognized in order that we can develop procedures. We need to be consulted with in order that regulations will work.
Regulators lose face in the eyes of the operators when we see poorly thought out regulations which we know do not contribute to safety. We want a practical, safe operation, but we do have a job to do. Our job is to develop the resources of the Northwest Territories and the Yukon.
The practical side is that our economy needs those developments. We have to bring those developments on stream in a safe manner from a transportation point of view, and we need the cooperation of Transport Canada and all the governments to get there. This country needs that development.
Mr. Laserich: In other words, we do not want Ottawa to think that we in the Northwest Territories are a bunch of hillbillies. There is a lot of pioneering done up here.
We operate the only Lear jet north of Calgary. We operate in the Arctic. We went to Tucson and were given a plaque for being the most northerly operators of a jet in North America. It takes innovative ideas to do that kind of thing, and Ottawa should pay attention a bit more to what is going on here.
The Deputy Chairman: I remember that when they first started flying DC-6s up north they would bring extra 45-gallon drums of fuel inside the airplane. That way, they did not have to land to refuel, especially with 130 av gas. We had the hoses and pump for refueling right inside the airplanes.
Senator Forrestall: Of the 60-odd airports, how many strips can you get into with the Lear?
Mr. Laserich: There are only three paved runways in the Territories; Rankin Inlet, Yellowknife, and Inuvik. We operate 80 per cent on gravel. We have a gravel deflector kit which was designed in Anchorage, Alaska. It is the only one in North America, and probably the world. We land mostly on hard gravel surface.
Senator Forrestall: You have obviously had a good and safe operation.
Mr. Laserich: We have been running it for four and a half years now.
Senator Forrestall: That proves something, does it not?
Mr. Laserich: Yes.
The Deputy Chairman: Thank you very much for your time. We have learned a lot from you and hope to see you in the future.
Mr. Douglas: Thank you. Let us know if we can help.
Mr. Kevin Elke, Base Chief Pilot, Ptarmigan Airways: I am Kevin Elke. I am base chief pilot with First Air and Ptarmigan Airways in Yellowknife here.
Mr. Mike Muldoon, Company Safety Officer, Northwest Territorial Airlines: I am Mike Muldoon. I am the company safety officer with Northwest Territorial Airlines. I fly the line as a Boeing 737 pilot, as well as a few duties as the safety officer.
We have decided to present to you from the perspective of "Where do we go from here?" We already have a good level of safety.
Boeing produces some very interesting statistics. Based on the current expansion of the jet fleet, by the year 2010 there will be a hull loss every week somewhere in the world. That is a frightening statistic when you consider that aviation is an everyday thing in the north. It is the school bus; it comes and it goes, and people depend on it.
Our goal is to reduce the likelihood of hull losses in the Northwest Territories by getting away from non-precision approaches, which are recognized as a dangerous manoeuvre but are executed by pilots here every day. It is the norm. In the south, they have a precision approach with new technologies which can be used quite effectively in the north.
Boeing also predicts that of those hull losses every year, 50 per cent will be from pilots flying perfectly good airplanes into the ground. That is a great risk in the north because of these non-precision approaches and the lack of ATC and hard altitudes. That is the environment in which we operate and that is what we think the committee should focus on.
Mr. Elke: I would like to make a few comments following up on what Mike has said.
In our company, we are a little concerned about budget cuts. It remains to be seen how NAV CANADA will deal with the public consultation process. I have flown out of Yellowknife for ten years and I have seen many navigation aids, flight service stations and whatnot shut down with very little consultation with the locals.
As an example, there is a weather station at Lupin gold mine, which is 250 miles north of here. It is jointly funded by Echo Bay Mines, which owns the mine, and Atmosphere and Environmental Services. It was decided three or four years ago to shut down what was considered to be an under-utilized weather station. At the same time, they decided to shut down the peripheral radio station through which we could talk to Yellowknife flight service via Lupin.
They shut down the peripheral and talked about shutting down the weather station. They looked at the number of aircraft movements in and out of Lupin. This was in the height of the diamond staking rush, the busiest time that this area of the north has ever seen, and they decided that not enough aircraft were landing at Lupin and they should shut down the peripheral and the weather station. There was quite a public outcry.
They did find a means of funding the weather station. The peripheral was shut down although I understand from correspondence I have received recently that they are going to start it back up.
A little public consultation would have gone a long way in that case.
Senator St. Germain: When you say the peripheral, is this like what they used to have on the outskirts of Vancouver?
Mr. Elke: It is a repeater. You are talking to something at the mine, but it is transmitted to Yellowknife. That is the same as Arctic Radio and Baffin Radio up along the coast and in the Baffin. You talk to them, but you are actually talking to North Bay, Ontario via the DEW line.
It is certainly a nice service to have and somebody in Ottawa sat down and arbitrarily decided that this was a good place to save a few bucks without consulting the users. At that time, there were airplanes everywhere up there, as there are today. That area has never seen activity like it has in the last six years.
A little public consultation would go a long way.
Senator Forrestall: There is not a politician in Ottawa smart enough to have dreamt that up.
Mr. Elke: You are probably a better judge of that than I.
We see a lot of decisions up here that are based on southern aircraft movements. Pearson has 500,000 aircraft movements a year, therefore it can support X amount of navigational aids, radio services and weather services.
Although the north has a small population, we are very dependent on aircraft, air travel being the only way in and the only way out. The government should make decisions based on what is actually required rather than solely on aircraft movements or on a per capita basis. We have only 53,000 people in the N.W.T., but everyone travels by air. Aircraft movements alone are not a good decision-making basis.
Another item is runway lengths. Arctic Airports has done a good job of improving the airports in the north with a limited budget, which is becoming more and more limited. Public consultation on the length of runways would have been beneficial.
In the local native communities we have runways of 3,000 feet, which is adequate for a Twin Otter. It is adequate for a King Air 200 for med-evac services if you do not worry about what they call a balanced field length, the ability to accelerate to a certain speed, abort the take off and stop on the remaining runway.
With the new air regulations, there was a push on for commuter category aircraft to meet a balanced field length, which would have basically shut down the med-evac business with aircraft that go fast enough to make a med-evac feasible, fast enough to get someone to a hospital in a reasonable amount of time.
After some pushing and shoving, Transport backtracked and now we have a reprieve until December 10, 2010, I believe. Another 500 feet on these 3,000-foot runways would have gone a long way toward meeting the needs of the users and improving safety. The issue is safety.
Finally, my company believes that due to budget cutbacks in Transport Canada, the enforcement and tracking of the airline industry in the north is becoming less and less hands on and more and more administrative. We spend so much time pushing paper in order to keep the audit process happy that we do not have the time we would like to teach people, hands on, how to fly in this environment. We would like to see fair and equitable enforcement with more of a hands-on approach and less of an administrative approach.
Senator St. Germain: Gentlemen, you spoke about a hull loss every week. I have heard that statement, although I thought it was more. Do you think things will change up here that dramatically? Is Boeing not speaking of hull losses in areas of higher population concentration?
Mr. Muldoon: It is a worldwide average. Last month we had a hull loss in Africa, in an area which is not highly populated.
Senator St. Germain: Are you referring to the hijacking?
Mr. Muldoon: Yes. That may or may not count.
The one before that was in South America off the coast of Peru.
Senator St. Germain: Yes. There was another one in South America yesterday.
Mr. Muldoon: I have not heard about that one.
Senator St. Germain: It was a Twin Otter.
On the question of non-precision approaches versus the GPS, is your concern that there is no supervision and no control tower?
Mr. Muldoon: I believe that a GPS letdown is far safer than an NDB letdown, because most of the modern GPSs have the capability to give you a localizer. Therefore, you are actually getting a better picture of what you are doing to an inbound track to a runway. In NDB approaches, you are flying the point of a needle, the result of which depends on how good your compass is. The GPS is very specific.
Senator St. Germain: Did you make reference to an increase in danger?
Mr. Muldoon: The risk in non-precision approaches increases with the increase in air traffic. The more airplanes, the more likely we are to have an accident; hence the need for better technology.
Senator St. Germain: NATA, which appeared prior to you, said that about 80 per cent of their traffic was virtually taxi aircraft, nine passengers or less. Is most of that type of traffic VFR, or is this instrument flight?
Mr. Muldoon: For us, it is nearly all instrument flight.
Senator St. Germain: Yes, but for them is there a conflict between instrument and VFR?
Mr. Muldoon: As far as traffic is concerned?
Senator St. Germain: Yes.
Mr. Muldoon: In some instances. That will happen right here in Yellowknife. We had an incident about six weeks ago where our TCAS probably saved us from a major accident not four miles from the end of the runway in Yellowknife.
Senator St. Germain: I am concerned about weather stations and I took the issue up. However, it is tough to fight something when you are involved in it. It is much better to be at arm's length with no conflict of personal interest.
In the north and in certain parts of British Columbia, you can go through two or three weather patterns in an hour as a result of mountain ranges and other things.
I know many of the people involved from when I was Minister of State for Transport. They were just told to make the cuts. Although they knew it would be tougher to fly, they had to shut down stations. There were weather stations shut down in British Columbia that should never have been shut down. The closure of repeater radio stations was bound to have an impact on safety.
I do not know how to get through to the system. It is not a question of who is power. It does not matter whether it is the Liberals or the Conservatives.
Mr. Elke: It comes back to the consultation process. To the credit of AES, they did consult at one point on forecasting. All the carriers and communities were told that they had to cut back to a certain number of forecasts per day and were asked when they wanted to have them. That was better than no consultation at all.
Everything comes back to having a realistic consultation process, not just having a meeting to tell us what has already happened. That is what gets people's dander up.
The same happened with AWOS. AWOS was rammed down everyone's throat before it was really ready. There are still some hard feelings about that. It is more important in the north because of the lack of stations. From Yellowknife to Baker Lake is the same distance as from Calgary to Brandon, and there is nothing there. There is a little rinkydink AWOS at Fort Reliance since they shut down the weather station there, and the information it provides is so useless that no one bothers to use it.
The type of work I do is both VFR and IFR. I fly Twin Otters. We go from here to Baker Lake, and we fly right in the weather. We are not flying above it at 35,000 feet. It would certainly be nice to know what is between here and there.
AWOS systems do not produce reliable information, yet forecasting is based on that information. If the information is messed up, the forecast is incorrect. When you are going to Pelly Bay from Yellowknife on a dark and dirty night and the quality of information is suspect, you are really pulling your pants down. Pelly Bay is giving you weather, if it had an AWOS, which is questionable. You are using Cambridge Bay, which was using AWOS, although they have repealed that. They now have both AWOS and an actual observation at Cambridge.
If you hold Cambridge Bay as your alternate destination if you do not get to your original target, and you make that choice based on a forecast derived from questionable information, what happens if you get there and that forecast is out too?
The distances are vast. One must be very careful before making arbitrary cuts up here, because the resources are very limited.
Senator St. Germain: You heard the previous witnesses talking about these PPCs. Is that part of this administration dilemma you were talking about? Have you any suggestions on how we could tell Transport Canada that they are killing these people? Instead of being able to train pilots and keep their people proficient, they are having to spend so much time doing paperwork that it is nonsensical.
I do not want to put you on the spot. I understand if you are not comfortable answering. The eyes and ears of Transport Canada are everywhere. I found that out.
Mr. Elke: Yes. I want to play that one carefully.
First, it does not impact the company that I am with, which has fixed wing aircraft in general. I got my multi-IFR on a Beech Travelair and I fly Twin Otters and G-1s now, so one does not transfer over to the other. They are not the same aircraft.
I am speaking of administration in general. Transport Canada seems to believe that more paper equals safer airlines, and it does not. We are seeing more and more of that as there are fewer people. They spend less time on the road so they sit in their office and they create paper, which we have to fend off.
Airlines, by nature, create enough of their own paper without a lot of external stuff. My point is that there is less hands-on input from Transport Canada. I am not saying that I like them jumping out from behind trees and rocks and counting how many drums I am rolling into the back of my airplane, but creating more administration does not improve safety. Nothing is improved by creating more paperwork.
Senator St. Germain: Do they have a standards division which spot checks pilots or anything?
Mr. Elke: They have been doing that all along. We do not see them often, but they come along for what they call route checks. We have PPC rides. We do a fair number of them in-house now, company check pilots.
Senator St. Germain: You have your own in-house standards?
Mr. Elke: You have to. The basics are laid out to you, and it is up to the individual airlines to create their own syllabuses and stuff like that, which is another area that could be addressed.
Transport expects companies to create all their own syllabuses but gives no direction on how to do it. It is a process of submitting and resubmitting until they are satisfied. They should just tell us how they want it in the first place.
Senator St. Germain: Must a company have a certain number of aircraft before it needs to have an in-house standards test?
Mr. Elke: The level of standard changes with the size of the aircraft, not the number. It does not matter whether you have one 737or six.
Senator Forrestall: That is strange. I would have thought it would have changed significantly whether you have one or 20.
What do you see as the problems today that will lead to the loss of one hull a week in the year 2010? What must be addressed today in order to change that statistic 15 or 25 years from now?
Mr. Muldoon: We must look at more precision approaches in the north and identify where we are going to put them, as well as ATC radar in order to control airplanes.
Senator Forrestall: You are speaking of electronics?
Mr. Muldoon: Yes. A GPS receiver/transmitter on the airplane will be able to transmit the airplane's position to a satellite which, in turn, will be able to transmit it back to earth. So radar, as we know it today, might be obsolete in five years with a totally lower cost solution there.
Transport Canada did an analysis which showed they could install a GPS receiver in every airplane, shut down a large number of the VORs in Canada and come out $1 million ahead in the first year. With the changeover in technology, the cost of running things is mind-boggling.
There are two or three systems available. There is also a transponder landing system.
Senator Forrestall:To return to my question, what are the existing problems that will cause these hull losses and what can we do today to change that statistic?
Mr. Muldoon: It is the inadequacy of the approach facility which is the cause of the problem.
Senator Forrestall: How does that sit with the current drive to get more and more VFR approaches by the commercial operators? Is it to save money and time?
Mr. Muldoon: It relates to bigger equipment. Where there used to be a Single Otter trip once a week, there is now a 748 twice a day and a Boeing three times a week. With bigger and faster equipment using the same facilities that a Single Otter used to use, the risk rises.
Senator Forrestall: One arm of technology is not keeping abreast with another which is demanding more sophistication.
Mr. Muldoon: Yes, that is a good way of putting it. We are using the same technology with modern jet transport as we were using 30 years ago. We have to upgrade our technology.
Senator Forrestall: Our Aeronautics Act was written 60 or 70 years ago. That has something to do with it.
Mr. Muldoon: What was good enough then does not count today.
Senator Forrestall: Do you agree with that, Captain?
Mr. Elke: I certainly do not disagree with it. There will always be accidents. You cannot legislate them away and nor can we train them away. As the global fleet increases and flight hours increase, there will be more accidents. We can make small improvements, but there will still be aircraft that are crashed.
We need sensible legislation, and in many cases that is not what we have. The legislation is often made to serve the government's own purposes. This comes back to user consultation.
It is important to police carriers that are not pulling their weight. Most of the carriers police themselves. We train our people, because we do not want them crashing our airplanes. However, there are some scary little carriers out there that continue to operate. I can certainly name names. Keeley Air on the West Coast was one of the well known ones. There were all kinds of horror stories.
You have to fix these problems before they kill someone, not after. It seems to be an ongoing problem that carriers which are known to have problems do not fix them until someone gets killed. You have to be proactive, not reactive.
Senator Forrestall: Are we strong enough on new entry requirements?
Mr. Elke: That has to be looked at in person, and this refers back to administration. It seems to be that as long as your paper is in order, everything is all right. It cannot all be done by paper. That a carrier is new does not mean it is not safe, by any means. You cannot do it all administratively.
Mr. Muldoon: Was that question directed at the carrier or at the personnel the carrier is going to employ?
Senator Forrestall: It was directed at both. We have had some horror stories with new entries in the commercial game in the south and I am sure you have had them here in the north.
Mr. Elke: There are a lot of nickel and dime operators running on a shoestring. I used to work for a shoestring operator in Manitoba. He should have been shut down but his paperwork was not too bad, and he carried on. Transport knew that everything was not on the up and up, but as long as the paperwork is all right, everything is just ducky.
Senator St. Germain: There is a delicate balance between being too aggressive with new guys and shutting them down, and being fair to them.
Mr. Elke: That is a very good point. You could kill the industry like that too. There has to be room for start-up carriers, or we will all go the way of the dinosaur.
Senator Forrestall: Is the entry requirement good enough? This is 1996. The entry requirement, to the best of my knowledge, has never changed.
Mr. Elke: It certainly changed with the new air regulations.
Senator Forrestall: As we became better educated and had to deal with more complex and sophisticated technology, of course it changed, but only by necessity. Sometimes necessity is not enough, because necessity will always follow the fact.
If you are a good bookkeeper, you can get away for a certain length of time. I used to make brake "pucks." I filled a few batteries at 4:30 in the morning so a plane could go earn a buck and we could meet payroll. That was not good. That was 35 or 40 years ago. It was bad enough then, but I suspect it still happens now. The entry requirement for us was no sweat. Our bookkeeping was pretty good.
I am, of course, exaggerating. We did have some new equipment that was pretty damn good.
Are we scrutinizing people and equipment closely enough? If we are not, that is a safety concern to me.
In one case, the day after the department issued an operating licence in the south, it had to take it away. That is a little scary. On the other hand, I suppose it is reassuring that they caught up with it that quickly, but they did not catch up with it until the barn door had been opened and danger had bared its ugly face. That is something I am concerned about.
Mr. Muldoon: On the whole, entry level standards are good. It is a question of the regulatory body ensuring that they are maintained.
Senator Forrestall: I am not happy with the way airframe maintenance is checked. Someone selling a plane could say it has 418 cycles on it since its last major airframe overhaul when it really has 20,000 cycles on it. I do not know how you check it.
Mr. Elke: There are component records. They follow the life of an aircraft and all the pieces that are attached to it.
Mr. Muldoon: It can be done, and it is done.
Senator Forrestall: You have a sophisticated system of logbooks which you can look at. There are new entrants coming in that do not have that. However, I am pleased to hear that that is not a concern to you.
Senator Bacon: We are now approximately ten years into airline deregulation and two years into Open Skies with the United States. Have these two developments combined contributed to a negative effect on safety?
Mr. Muldoon: I do not think so. I think it has only increased the number of airplanes flying, which increases the likelihood of accidents, just based on numbers. I do not think it has a negative effect on safety in itself, as long as the entry standards are maintained. That is the key.
Senator Bacon: What effect do the flight and duty time regulations for pilots and crew have on safety?
Mr. Elke: It depends on how you look at it. Economically it will certainly put some restraints on the north. A portion of my company's business is seasonal. We make hay when the sun shines. It is very similar to helicopter operation.
I do not think it will negatively impact safety. The fact that people will be able to fly less economically will certainly hurt all the carriers. However, by the same token, if no one flew, planes would not crash.
Economically, it will certainly hurt carriers right across this country. We are currently scrambling to figure out what the impact will be. It is not a problem at the moment, as it is wintertime, but it will certainly have an impact next summer. It means that you have to have more people and you have to train more people. Your resources are spread a little thinner.
Rather than training five people to a very high standard, you now have to train seven people to not quite that same standard, because you do not have the time or the resources. The air regulations are causing this.
Senator St. Germain: The previous witnesses said that there is a difference between flying in the north and in the south. Do you concur that pilots should be able to log more time up here without jeopardizing safety than should people who are subjected to the stresses in larger communities?
Mr. Elke: Flying from point A to point B is less stressful when you are not dealing with the ATC to the same degree.
I would just rather not comment on the rest of your comment.
The Deputy Chairman: The previous witnesses were talking mostly about short runs from one community to the next, for example. A commercial pilot could start from Calgary or Edmonton, go to Yellowknife and Rankin, and all the way up to Iqaluit. It is a different situation. Up here, you can have long hours of flight, especially in the summertime. At least you are not flying over the clouds at 36,000 or 40,000 feet. Most of the smaller helicopters and small charter airplanes fly at around 20,000 feet. Your operation does more commercial flying, just like down south. You fly jets. Twin Otters and a small float plane might be a little different.
Mr. Elke: There are certainly differences between the type of work that a helicopter, a Twin Otter, a Hawker Siddeley 748 and the Boeings do. It is tough to come up with a hard and fast rule on it.
From my company's point of view, flight duty times prior to the new air regulations are what they should be, although here are various points of view on that.
Senator St. Germain: You think they should go from 180 to 150?
Mr. Elke: Actually, 120 extendible to 150, for most of the airplanes that I have to deal with.
Senator St. Germain: What is it now?
Mr. Elke: It is currently 120 extendible to 150.
Senator St. Germain: And it was?
Mr. Elke: It was as high as 180 at one point. You could get an extension to 180.
Mr. Muldoon: At Territorial, we see both ends of it. With the Herc operation it is more likely to be air taxi-cum-Twin Otter business, which is a lot of seasonal work. On the Boeings, it is very much airline type work flying from point A to point B.
As was said earlier, it depends on where you are going. If you have to fly across four time zones and then go to a noisy hotel, by the time you go back to work the next day your body system is out of sync, operating in a different time zone. When you fly back to Toronto, you are still out of sync. Then you have to drive up the 401 to get home. You probably made the same drive the morning before. The most dangerous part of the day was the drive down the 401 to get to the airport. You could well already be fatigued by the time you get to work.
I live in Yellowknife. It takes me ten minutes to get to work on a bad day in heavy traffic. If you come home to your own bed every night, there is way less stress than if you are in a noisy hotel room in a strange city.
The Deputy Chairman: I am concerned about safety with regard to Nunavut taking over in 1999. Some of the aircraft are getting old. Is the company able to afford to update?
Mr. Elke: The company is looking at the aging aircraft scenario, as are all companies. We have old Hawker Siddeley 748s. By southern standards, I suppose they are an older aircraft.
New aircraft are expensive. That certainly is going to be a factor. I cannot speak for the people who sign the cheque to buy new aircraft.
With regard to safety implications, if we are going to have new generation aircraft, we are going to need longer runways in many of the communities. Three thousand feet will not be sufficient.
We have done an exhaustive study of what could replace the Hawker. The contenders are ATR 42s and Fokker 50s. They will require more runway. If money is to be spent on airport development, they must consider the length of runways. The days of building short field takeoff and landing airplanes are over. They are building Dash 8s and ATR 42s, which like lots of runway. We will have a hard time introducing that to the north unless there is some infrastructure in place.
Mr. Muldoon: There is currently no replacement for a 737-200 Combie. The later generation 737s cannot go on gravel. They can, however, go on pavement and, at the present time, our only scheduled gravel destination is Cambridge Bay. So the runway length is sufficient for the newer 737s, but they will have to be paved.
With regard to aging, the airplanes are on the Boeing maintenance program, and they go through the process every year.
The Deputy Chairman: Do you lose much time in the winter due to bad weather forcing you to another destination until the weather clears?
Mr. Muldoon: Yes. Cambridge Bay and Ranking Inlet are bad destinations. They have lots of blizzards.
During my time in the north, there have been times when we have not been to places for two weeks because of bad weather at one end or the other. That is a fact of life in the north and will continue to be without precision approaches. Even precision approaches will not solve the problem in many blizzards. When it is a ground blow, quite often you can see the runway going over the top. It is the last 20 feet into the blowing snow that is where you lose sight of everything.
The Deputy Chairman: Thank you very much. We hope we see you again in the future.
The committee adjourned.