Proceedings of the Special Senate Committee on
Transportation Safety
and Security
Issue 5 - Evidence
OTTAWA, Wednesday, June 9, 1999
The Subcommittee on Transportation Safety of the Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications met this day at 6:12 p.m. to study the state of transportation safety and security in Canada.
Senator J. Michael Forrestall (Chairman) in the Chair.
[English]
The Chairman: We are assembled here this evening to examine transportation safety and security in Canada, considering both its present state and where we should be in 10 or 15 years.
We are very pleased to welcome Kathy Fox, who is the Director, Safety and Quality, from NAV CANADA. I imagine that her colleague, the Director, Labour Relations, is very busy putting the finishing touches on what appears to be a successful conclusion to the latest round of talks with the air traffic controllers. On behalf of all those who are getting ready to travel, I thank God that we have avoided that. I congratulate both sides.
Ms Kathy Fox, Director, Safety and Quality, NAV CANADA: Given the settlement only a few hours ago, Mr. Veltheim is not able to appear with me tonight. He is quite busy right now. I am pleased that I can be here with you, and that I have the opportunity to update you on activities related to safety management at NAV CANADA.
[Translation]
I will make a fifteen-minute presentation, or thereabouts, after which I will be happy to answer your questions.
[English]
NAV CANADA is a private-sector, non-share capital corporation, and it was founded in May of 1995. Responsibility for the ownership, management and operation of the air navigation system in Canada was transferred to it on November 1, 1996. It is a financially self-sufficient entity, and it is totally independent of government. Our primary services are the provision of air traffic control services, flight information services, and electronic aids to navigation.
We are a commercial business, and we operate through commercial business practices. Any surpluses earned, however, are reinvested in the system. They are either used to fund new technology, to perform research and development, or, according to the provisions of the Civil Air Navigation Services Commercialization Act, are returned to the users in the form of reduced fees.
I would like to focus on three areas in this presentation. The first is the regulatory context under which we operate. The second deals with our achievements during the two-year period 1997-1998. Finally, I would like to focus on the corporate safety plan.
One of the biggest changes for air navigation services in this country was the separation of the service provider from the regulator in November, 1996. In addition, new civil aviation regulations were enacted just a few weeks prior to commercialization in order to govern the provision of air navigation services. These regulations contain elements of the traditional prescriptive regulations, but they are based on performance. That is to say, the goals are set by Transport Canada as the regulator, and it is up to NAV CANADA to determine how to achieve those goals.
Our approach to regulation and to safety is a joint partnership approach. I co-chair a Transport Canada/NAV CANADA Joint Safety Oversight Committee to address safety issues.
One of the regulations under Part VIII of the Canadian Aviation Regulations specifies that NAV CANADA is required to have a corporate-level safety management program that will provide independent internal safety oversight. This program must have a manager who reports directly to the chief executive officer. That is my role. Under that regulation, I am responsible for ensuring that risk assessments of operational policies, plans and procedures are conducted. I am also responsible for the collection of risk-related data.
The chart on page 3 of your handout describes the roles of the various stakeholders in safety management.
[Translation]
In fact, some transportation safety offices are responsible, as independent agents, for monitoring air safety in Canada, not just air navigation services, and for investigating accidents and incidents as well.
[English]
There is a diagram on page 3 of the handout on safety management for NAV CANADA that outlines roles in safety management.
[Translation]
Transport Canada regulates and monitors safety. At NAV CANADA, we have a Safety Committee of the Board of Directors. My office reports directly to the President and CEO.
[English]
The day-to-day safety activities of the company are really owned by the vice-presidents of the various departments -- operations, engineering, and so on. As I said, my role is really to provide safety oversight to get the big picture. My mandate is to examine that view of the corporation in order to see how it is managing safety activities.
Commercialization has allowed us to make specific achievements from 1996 to 1998. We have increased the level of safety oversight over the air navigation service in Canada, because now Transport Canada acts primarily as a regulator and safety overseer. As I mentioned, there is the Safety Committee of the Board of Directors, and my own position. In addition, new regional safety managers monitor and oversee safety.
We have reinstated a program of refresher training for our operational personnel -- air traffic controllers and flight service specialists. That program had been reduced under Transport Canada because of budget restrictions.
Annual proficiency checks are enforced under the regulations. We use those checks to verify the competency and the currency of our operational personnel. We have increased the frequency of our safety audits and the safety evaluations of our operational facilities, and we have brought in new streamlined procedures to facilitate the timely deployment of fixes to systems and equipment and the deployment of new systems and equipment.
In addition, prior to making any change to the level of service in an area, NAV CANADA undertakes an aeronautical study. That study is based on the Canadian Standards Association standard Q850: Risk Management Guidelines for Decision Makers.
This is a process that was implemented under NAV CANADA. Under the regulations, the minister may require us to do an aeronautical study. Our policy has been to do one whenever we undertake a change to a level of service. As well, we require each new project -- whether it is for a new system, new equipment, or organizational change --to include a safety management plan as part of that project.
We conduct an operational safety review of any significant organizational or operational changes that are undertaken by NAV CANADA prior to their implementation. Last year, we implemented a confidential safety reporting program that allows all of our employees anywhere in the company to anonymously report a safety concern directly to senior management. We produce a regular safety newsletter designed for frontline personnel, in order to ensure that the lessons learned from incidents are shared with all of the operational personnel. Sharing this information allows our personnel to benefit from the lessons learned.
We have implemented quality management processes. Those processes are registered to the ISO 9000 applicable standard in our maintenance activities for electronic aids to navigation systems, to equipment for aeronautical information services, and for our training system.
We have undertaken training in safety management and risk management for all of our managers. Last November, we published our first annual corporate safety plan. To our knowledge, this is the first time that any air navigation service provider anywhere in the world has published a corporate safety plan. This three-year plan sets out the direction that we are taking to manage safety. It allows us to develop a framework that ensures that our activities within the company are coordinated and purposeful, and it really is the cornerstone of a performance-based rather than a prescriptive-based regulatory framework.
The 1998-1999 plan basically included a preface by the chief executive officer, a report on our safety achievements, and our three-year strategic safety goals. It also included specific objectives for the year 1998-99 that would allow us to attain those three-year goals.
Allow me to share with you the goals that we have set for ourselves for the coming three-year period. We have not changed our initial six goals, but we have set some specific objectives for the 1999-2000 year. They include: integrating safety management into our business planning cycle; integrating safety management into new project planning; introducing supplemental procedures in the conduct of business and operations in engineering and human resources to ensure safety; and, finally, working with Transport Canada to reinforce the use of a safety management system as a basis for the regulatory framework.
NAV CANADA has undertaken a number of strategic initiatives designed to improve the efficiency of the system and to better respond to our customer needs. We realize that change can have an impact on safety, and because of that we have developed a transition plan that allows us to safely manage those changes. More specifically, ours is not only a safety plan prior to the implementation, but also a follow-up safety review afterwards that allows us to derive the benefits of any lessons learned.
Our third safety goal for the three-year period is to systematically apply human factors in NAV CANADA operations. We know that human factors underlie most safety deficiencies, and most accidents and incidents. We want to ensure that we are applying the best of research in human factors throughout our activities -- whether it is the design of equipment, training for operational personnel or to ensuring that, when there is an incident, we can collect the appropriate data in order to intervene with appropriate counter measures.
The fourth strategic goal is to manage the risks associated with the year 2000, or the Y2K issue. All of our systems and equipment are Y2K certified, and we are completing our contingency plans in the event that there should be any unforeseen problems. Of course, we are also dealing with the interfaces -- the other service providers that we have to deal with.
Our last two goals are three-year goals. One is to operate a safety measurement program. In aviation, we have traditionally tended to look at incidents and accidents as an indication of safety performance, and to believe that, because they occur after the fact and are too late, we can learn from them but we cannot wait for them to happen. We have to find other more proactive ways of assessing the effectiveness of our safety management. We are working quite closely with other international ANS providers, particularly in the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand, in order to develop benchmarks and to share best practices.
Finally, because our system is very much driven by technology and equipment, we are striving to systematically manage the safety risks associated with the implementation of new systems such as the Canadian Automated Air Traffic System, or CAATS, and other air traffic control, or ATC, decision support tools.
We are proud of the fact that we have been able to develop the corporate safety plan. It allows us to ensure that our corporate safety activities are aligned, and it is a public statement of our commitment to safety. It allows us to measure our own progress over time, and it promotes continuous improvement.
I would be happy to answer any questions you might have.
The Chairman: On page 2 of your backgrounder on air navigation safety, you say:
a commitment to spend up to $600 million over five years for new systems and technologies whose primary purpose is to improve the quality of information available to pilots and increase safety.
Could you elaborate on that, and give us an example of a situation where the information going to pilots is less than desirable?How will you spend the $600 million? This is over $120 million a year. What does it envision?
Ms Fox: A number of systems are being implemented -- for example, in the provision of weather information, we are looking at the latest up-to-date technologies, like radar satellite imagery. I would not like to leave you with the impression that pilots are not getting reliable information. They are. But we are certainly taking advantage of new technology and of advances in technology. This will allow us to provide better information than we may have been able to provide in the past, when we did not then have the technology available.
We are orienting ourselves much more now to taking advantage of things like satellite technology, satellite navigation, and direct controller pilot data links. Such technologies allows computers to talk to each other, which reduces things like frequency congestion, and reduces the possibility of error because of misunderstood communications. We did not have those types of systems five or ten years ago.
The Chairman: It is not, then, to do something about the Automated Weather Observing System, or AWOS?
Ms Fox: As you may be aware, Transport Canada removed the moratorium in 1998. Our position is that we will not implement AWOS as a stand-alone weather-observing facility unless our customers want it. Even then, we would only do so subject to an aeronautical study like the one that I mentioned -- one that looks at all of the safety impacts. In addition, it would be subject to a climatological study, which would be done by Environment Canada.
The Chairman: Can that technology can be developed to the point where it is reliable, or should we be looking at other technologies?
Ms Fox: From a technical standpoint, I may not be the best person to talk to.
The Chairman: You are the best one we have talked to.
Ms Fox: Where technology has proven itself to add value to the system, either as a tool for the controller, the flight service specialist, or the pilot, then certainly we should adopt that technology. We have, however, always adopted a cautious approach with respect to fielding technology until it has proven itself from a safety perspective. That is why we have adopted our position with respect to the use of AWOS.
The Chairman: Is the $600 million primarily for hardware and software programs?
Ms Fox: Yes. Part of that is for the implementation of CAATS, but there are other systems as well. For example, we are upgrading our radar data processing systems. We have fielded a new voice communication switch that is state of the art. We are fielding updated systems that can be used in an environment where we do not have radar coverage. A number of systems are therefore being implemented.
The Chairman: I wish you luck with it. That is a big investment -- is it coming out of your revenues?
Ms Fox: Yes. All of our expenses, both operating and capital, are ultimately covered through user charges.
The Chairman: It is coming out of my back pocket, but I am not objecting. You make it safe, and I will pay.
Senator Roberge: I read a newspaper article about your intent to close the information and weather station in Robertville, Quebec. Recently the information and weather stations in Mont-Joli and Baie-Comeau have been closed. We had a crash in the Gaspé not too long ago, and four people were killed. The Association des pilotes de brousse du Québec says that it is extremely important to have that facility open, because they do not have any way of communicating unless they go up to over 5,000 feet. Are you aware of that?
Ms Fox: We still have a staff facility in Mont-Joli, and there are no plans to change that. Transport Canada closed the Baie- Comeau tower in 1994. However, we do provide a remote airport advisory service for Baie-Comeau from Mont-Joli. At this point, we have not made any decision with respect to the flight service station at Robertville. Both there and in other areas we are studying whether the service that is currently being provided is appropriate, and we do that through a process called the aeronautical study. We do an analysis of the risks of any change to the level of service. As well, we consult fully with all of the stakeholders -- the users, et cetera -- prior to making any decisions.
Ultimately, whatever recommendations come out of that study will be reviewed by Transport Canada, which will be the final arbiter, if you will, of the impact on safety.
We are looking to provide an appropriate level of service for the specific site, and there are different ways of providing that service. In some cases, we may require a control tower. In other cases it may be a flight service station. In other cases, that service can be provided just as well remotely from a central location.
Senator Roberge: You say that you have spoken to the stakeholders. Have you spoken to l'Association des pilotes de brousse du Québec?
Ms Fox: When we do an aeronautical study, we cast a wide net to catch as many of the users as possible. I cannot tell you if they are on the list, but I suspect that they would be. I can certainly check that out when I get back.
Senator Roberge: The article to which I referred complained pretty harshly about the potential closure of this information office.
Ms Fox: As I said, no decisions have been made. We announce the fact that we are going to study the level of service. Then, we go through the review process using the Canadian Standard Association risk management framework. We consult with anybody and everybody who would like to talk to us, and we make an effort to contact everybody who might be affected.
Senator Roberge: But it is a safety issue.
Ms Fox: First we consider the level of service, and then we make sure that any change to that level of service will not negatively impact on safety.
Senator Roberge: We will see what happens down the road.
I want to talk to you about Y2K. What percentage of your systems are compliant?
Ms Fox: One hundred percent of our systems are Y2K certified. In other words, they have been tested, renovated as appropriate, and they are certified to be Y2K compliant.
Senator Roberge: Certified by whom?
Ms Fox: By our own internal processes.
Senator Roberge: Have you utilized the offices of an outside consultant?
Ms Fox: Yes, we have.
Senator Roberge: Has that consultant confirmed this compliance?
Ms Fox: They come in and they look at the processes we use. They have been particularly useful in the areas of infrastructure systems, for example. But, yes, we have had an external party come in and look at what we are doing.
Our systems are Y2K ready. They have been tested. We have done operational testing in Vancouver, Edmonton and Montreal. We actually rolled our systems forward into the year 2000 and operated them there for a period of several days to a week in order to prove to ourselves that there was no problem.
Senator Roberge: Could you give us more information on your contingency plan? What is that all about?
Ms Fox: Even though we are confident that our systems will not encounter any problems on December 31st, 1999 and January 1, 2000, we have to prepare for the possibility that there may be something that we do not know about. We therefore make contingency plans for each individual system. If this system were to fail, what would be impacted and how would we deal with that? We view every single system from that perspective. A contingency plan is developed so as to work around that system or to use other systems. As well, of course, we are consulting with the airlines to determine the operational procedures that we would put into effect that night to ensure safety.
Senator Roberge: We can fly?
Ms Fox: Yes.
Senator Roberge: We will take your word for that.
The last time that we spoke with NAV CANADA and with the union there was a lot of discussion about overtime work, about the long hours of work, and about the shortage of staff.
To what percentage are you fully manned as far as air controllers are concerned, and how many people are retiring within the next year? In one of your reports you mention that a lot of people are retiring. What are your plans on that?
Ms Fox: We typically have a 4 per cent to 5 per cent attrition rate, where people are retiring or leaving for other reasons, resignations or whatever.
The degree of staffing varies in different facilities. Some facilities or some units within facilities are actually at full staff. Others may be at 90 per cent. We recognize that there is a shortage of staff, and we have undertaken a very proactive training program. We are bringing new trainees into the system. Every four to six weeks we are starting a new course in order to fill the gap between the current staffing level and the required staffing level.
As well, the ability to implement more efficient shift schedules is going to permit us to reduce our dependence on overtime until new employees are fully trained. We currently have around 200 trainees in the system across the country, and they are at various stages of their training to fully qualify as a controller.
Within the next two to three years, we are aiming to staff -- in fact, to overstaff -- our major facilities, all of our area control centres and our major towers, to 105 per cent. In other words, we hope to ensure that we have a buffer for that 4 per cent to 5 per cent attrition that we anticipate in the system.
Senator Roberge: What do you do for fatigue? We know about pilot fatigue, and scheduling is used to combat that. What do you do about scheduling?
Ms Fox: Our scheduling is designed to respect certain parameters, and those are part of our collective agreements. For example, we have limits on the maximum number of days of work, the maximum number of hours to be worked, and the minimum rest time between shifts. Our collective agreements contain parameters that are designed to minimize fatigue.
Senator Roberge: Do you rotate people through the shifts, or is it always the same people working the midnight shift?
Ms Fox: People rotate through shifts. They generally prefer to do that. We offer services seven days a week, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. We cannot get away from shift work. In scheduling shifts, however, we respect the parameters defined in our collective agreement, in order to ensure that people have the minimum rest time between shifts and so on.
Senator Adams: I would like to talk about landing fees. The small runways used to belong to Transport Canada and the Government of Canada, and now NAV CANADA has taken over.
I live in the arctic, and it is very expensive to bring freight into the community. The landing fees for a small aircraft are much the same as they would be for a 737. A 737 can carry up to 10,000 pounds, plus passengers. Small aircraft do not hold that much freight; there are less passengers and there is less weight. According to NAV CANADA, as long as the aircraft is over two tons there is a $64 landing fee, and the landing fee for a 737 may be somewhere between $80 or $100. Why is the price between small aircraft and big aircraft so similar?
Ms Fox: The rates that are charged for large jet aircraft are based on weight and distance flown, whereas small aircraft -- those primarily used for recreational purposes -- are charged a flat rate per year. There actually is quite a big difference between the prices. They are much more proportional to the weight of the aircraft.
In the north, where we have staff facilities, the terminal service charges that would normally be charged have been deferred for at least two years. The first phase will come in November, 1999, and the second in November, 2000. We have deferred the implementation of those fees, and they are only applicable where we have an air traffic control tower or a flight service station.
In terms of our proposal on change in northern services, we fully consulted with the users in the north about the recent changes to service delivery, and we are increasing the level of service in the north. In particular, we are increasing the hours of operation and the number of community aerodrome radio stations.
NAV CANADA does not charge a terminal fee for using those airports. The only charges that would be applied to the large aircraft would therefore be the en route charges. Terminal charges would not assessed if they were landing at an airport with a community aerodrome radio station. We have actually increased the level of service in the north by extending the hours of operation and by adding more of those facilities for which we do not charge a fee.
I hope that has clarified the situation with respect to the large aircraft and the small aircraft. The large aircraft are based on a function of weight and distance flown. The charges for a 737 will therefore be much greater than those for a light single engine aircraft or a twin aircraft.
Senator Adams: Why are there no landing fees for a medivac aircraft?
Ms Fox: NAV CANADA exempts medivac from charges. We do not charge fees to the medivacs in the north. There may be some confusion with respect to airport service charges or airport landing fees.
NAV CANADA is not responsible for airports. We are only responsible for the air navigation services. The fees imposed by the airport operators are levied in order to recover their costs as private owners of the airports. That, however, is separate from NAV CANADA. We do not operate the airports, and therefore we do not charge landing fees for use of the airports. We only charge fees for the provision of our air navigation services.
Senator Adams: Let's say that a private individual has two aircraft. He or she has a contract as a medivac operator, and it is worth $2 million or $3 million a year for the whole community. He or she can use one aircraft as a charter aircraft for another community, and the other for medivac. How are you to identify that?
Ms Fox: We have ways of identifying medical evacuation aircraft. They self-identify, and they are also identified through the flight plan that we file. Our billing system is set up so that the fees that would otherwise be levied are not charged to aircraft used for medical evacuations.
Senator Roberge: I want to come back to my question of fatigue. The fatigue that the air controllers experience is surely different than the fatigue that a person at a normal job experiences, even if both employees work shifts. Have you done any studies on that type of fatigue?
Ms Fox: Fatigue is most often associated with shift work. Regardless of the type of job that shift workers do, they are subject to certain effects because of circadian rhythms.
Senator Roberge: Certain types of positions, however, are more strenuous than others.
Ms Fox: We have looked at shift work and at overtime. Transport Canada did a study called "The Impact of Shift Work and Overtime on Fatigue." The first phase was done under Transport Canada. The second began under Transport Canada, but was completed under NAV CANADA. We are currently completing the third phase. We have undertaken to look at those issues with the Canadian Air Traffic Controllers Association and with the regulator in order to make sure that we are using the best knowledge that is available and the best practices that are available from the research. At the same time, however, we realize that even the research is contradictory in terms of what is best, and ultimately people adapt differently to shift work.
Senator Roberge: Are you aware of any studies been done in places like the United States or Great Britain?
Ms Fox: There have been a number of studies. We have looked at the results of those studies in the context of our own internal study on the impact that shift work and overtime have on employees.
Senator Roberge: Can you make your studies available to the committee?
Ms Fox: I can certainly arrange to do that.
The Chairman: That would be welcome. Perhaps they could be filed with the clerk.
Ms Fox: I can look into that.
Mr. Bruce Carson, Senior Researcher to the Committee: I have one issue that the committee has often talked about. It deals with the fact that it is pretty safe to fly in Canada. We have alluded to that in our first report.
One of the areas we also spoke about concerned flying into areas of the world that are not as safe. Has NAV CANADA been involved in trying to export the technology that we have here to those areas, or in trying to bring those areas up so that Canadians flying elsewhere would be as safe as they are in Canada?
Ms Fox: I am sure that you can appreciate that in our first few years as a private company we are concentrating on delivering safe air navigation services at home.
An organization called the Civil Air Navigation Safety Organization was formed about two years ago, and it groups commercial providers of air navigation services around the world. One of the purposes of that organization is to learn from others' experiences, and to share best practices so that not only can we improve and learn from the good things that other people are doing, but they can also learn from the Canadian experience. This exchange allows the overall level of air navigation safety and efficiency in the world to improve. We believe that is a very good forum for the sharing of experiences and information.
The Chairman: We have heard some evidence expressing real concern about the loss of separation in the air. Has the number of incidents been growing over the last five years? If so, are those incidents proportionate to the number of aircraft that are flying -- there are more and more every day -- or are there other factors?
Ms Fox: The definition that we use for loss of separation is quite broad. Within NAV CANADA, we have one of the most stringent definitions of loss of separation to be found in any jurisdiction in the world. Although we do count the absolute number each year, it is more important is to look at the rate per 100,000 movements or per volume of traffic. By doing that, we are able to see the impact of the growth in traffic.
In 1998, the total number of losses of separation decreased by 17 percent, and the rate of losses of separation has actually decreased slightly when compared to the preceding year. It has remained relatively stable or slightly down in 1998 over what it has been over the five-year period.
The Chairman: Is that a trend, or is that a position you can hold?
Ms Fox: Obviously we have to consider the long term, and we should not be too concerned if there are statistical blips one year or the next. We have to look at the long term. We have undertaken a number of initiatives to reduce the number of losses of separation, and this is the same issue that the airlines are dealing with in terms of accident rates.
We do not want to just maintain the rate of losses of separation, but rather to bring it down. We have therefore taken a number of initiatives such as human factors, training and situational awareness, communications and teamwork for air traffic controllers and flight service specialists. Through our safety newsletter, we are trying to communicate the lessons learned from incidents so that other people will avoid making the same mistakes. We have been very proactive in trying to determine the underlying causes so that we can apply appropriate countermeasures to reduce the numbers.
The Chairman: This question is difficult, because although you probably possess the broadest statistical base, in a sense this area is not your responsibility. I must ask, however, whether the industry is satisfied with the reporting system? Are pilots reporting all of the incidents that are reportable? Is it 5,000 or 1,000, or should it be 20,000?
Ms Fox: I am not in a position to comment on reports from pilots. Certainly, within NAV CANADA, any operating irregularities must be reported by our employees, and we encourage that. We have a non-punitive reporting system that ensures that they report such occurrences. As well, under the Canadian Aviation Regulations, NAV CANADA is required to record incidents and occurrences involving aircraft, pilot errors, aircraft mechanical problems and so on to Transport Canada. Transport Canada will then do the appropriate analysis to determine if there are safety concerns involving particular companies or individual pilots.
In addition, we are trying to share information with our customers as much as possible so that we can learn from each other. The airlines are implementing confidential safety reporting systems or data gathering systems that permit them to look at internal operating procedures, and to identify improvements that could be made to air traffic control procedures. We are trying to share information across the industry in order to improve safety.
The Chairman: Do you do that bilaterally, or is that a multilateral program through something like the International Civil Aviation Organization?
Ms Fox: We try to do it multilaterally, but there are also issues such as privacy and confidentiality. As much as possible we share information without making specific identifications, but ultimately we are all in it for the same reason and that is to improve the safety of the system. Wherever we can share information with the airlines that will improve the safety and the services that we deliver, or they can share such information with us, we do so.
Senator Roberge: NAV CANADA is relatively young and so are you. Where were you working before you came to NAV CANADA, and what were you doing?
Ms Fox: I was with Transport Canada from 1974 until the transfer to NAV CANADA in 1996. I am an operational air traffic controller by training. I worked in Sept-Îles, Baie-Comeau, and Dorval. I am a licensed pilot, and I have operated a flight training school and a charter operation near Montreal.
My background, however, is as an air traffic controller. Prior to assuming my current position, I was responsible within NAV CANADA for incident investigation and unit evaluations, which is when we audit our operational facilities. Before that, I performed the same task within Transport Canada.
The Chairman: I want to thank you very much. You have answered questions that are of considerable importance to us.
I cannot resist saying that I hope did you not take too much of a pay cut. You do not have to answer that.
Our next witnesses are from the Air Line Pilots Association.
Mr. Bob Perkins, Assistant Air Safety Chair, Air Line Pilots Association: Mr. Chairman, honourable senators, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to start off by offering Captain Lynch's regrets. He is the Canada board president for the Air Line Pilots Association, and he got called away last night on some urgent business that he could not put off. He extends his apologies.
I am the Assistant Canada Air Safety Chairman for the Air Line Pilots Association. I am a pilot based in Toronto, and I work for Air Ontario. Mr. Keith Hagy is Manager of Engineering and Accident Investigation with the Air Line Pilots Association International, which is based out of Herndon, Virginia. Mr. Jim Stewart is our very newly -- within the last two days -- appointed Air Safety Coordinator, one of three such positions within ALPA. Mr. Stewart is based in Ottawa now, and he concentrates primarily on airline issues. Captain Lynch, who is not here, is president of the Canada board. He is a 767 captain for Canadian Airlines International.
Mr. Chairman, honourable senators, on behalf of the Air Line Pilots Association we would like to express our appreciation for the opportunity to speak before this committee. We would also like to congratulate the members of this committee on the progress that they have made to date on the large and complex issue of aviation safety. It would appear that this committee has put considerable time and effort into understanding the myriad of items that we collectively place under the banner of "aviation safety".
The Air Line Pilots Association Association International represents over 53,000 airline pilots in Canada and the United States. Of those, 3,300 are Canadians serving at 11 different airlines. We also represent Canada at the International Federation of Air Line Pilots Association, or IFALPA.
The Air Line Pilots Association International is a trade union, but a trade union with a difference. Our members are all professional pilots. Our workers are all volunteers, except for our office support staff. Our committees are recognized worldwide as experts in the field. Some 30 per cent of our association's annual operating budget is spent on the advancement of air safety. At ALPA, aviation safety is job one.
We were invited to appear before this committee and to comment primarily on the issue of pilot fatigue, and we will do so in some detail. There are a number of additional issues that we would also like to bring to your attention. As well, several items in this committee's interim report of January 1999 are causing us some concern.
Let us consider pilot fatigue. The human body is a creature of habit. We are constantly adjusting and adapting to our environment. Night, day, summer, winter and the phases of the moon all affect the body human in some way, but the changes are slow, and normally our bodies have time to adapt to them.
When we step outside of this normal circadian rhythm, however, the body begins to react strangely. Air travel, particularly long-range jet travel, upsets this rhythm by speeding up the environmental changes to a point where the body cannot keep up. Anyone who has travelled more than three time zones east or west has experienced this in the form of jet lag. The farther you travel, the more your body clock gets out of synchronization, and the worse this jet lag is.
Symptoms for the traveller include insomnia, fatigue, loss of concentration and degradation of reasoning and motor skills. Eventually, the body adjusts to the new environment and one can function again at a normal level. This period of adjustment depends on the amount of offset the body clock experienced, with about one day recovery time for each time zone crossed. This is only part of the story.
Such miscues to the body's internal clock can occur without time zone changes. Merely by upsetting the normal work day, the same effect can be demonstrated. Studies have shown that, on a normal day, the human body peaks in efficiency in the mid to late morning, drops dramatically in efficiency in the afternoon, and then recovers slightly early in the evening before dropping off again later in the evening.
This pattern of cyclic ups and downs in efficiency does not change appreciably if you get up earlier or sleep later. For example, if you get up at 3 o'clock in the morning, you are not likely to feel on top of your game for quite a while. Conversely, staying up late, even if you are prepared for it, will result in drowsiness and lowered body efficiency in the late hours. Of course, if one conditions oneself to the adjusted body clock setting, for example, by getting up at 3 o'clock all the time, then the effects can be minimized. Unfortunately, that does not normally occur in aviation.
The interim report issued by this committee states in Chapter VIII, Section A, that "Witnesses believe that flying hours in the north need not be the same as they are for aircrews operating in southern Canada."
I would ask the committee if these witnesses provided any specifics as to how these pilots would be able to ignore or counteract the upset to their circadian rhythms. Is there some secret to life in the north that we are not privy to in southern Canada? Are these pilots really supermen in uniforms? I know the answers already. They are not supermen. They are subject to the same environmental effects as everyone else. The operators in the north wish to take advantage of the extended periods of daylight in the summer months, but care must be taken to ensure that the human component of the aviation system is not overlooked or abused.
Similar concerns can be raised for pilots operating in southern Canada. Crews beginning a flight or series of flights late in the day, particularly going westward, can be scheduled to operate well into their evening downturn periods. The current regulations do not account for the time a duty period starts, so it is possible to have a crew starting out in Halifax at 9 o'clock in the evening, just as their bodies are beginning to wind down, and still be expected to function at their highest levels over the next 14 hours, entirely during their down period. Add to that the fact that the cockpit is, by necessity, a dark place at night, it is warm, there is a constant droning sound from the engines, and there is very little physical activity on long flights when monitoring the automatic flight systems. This all serves to enhance the effect of the down cycle, and makes it even more difficult to maintain the state of alertness required for long periods.
It is ALPA's position that consideration should be given to a graduated system of duty period regulations, with reductions in duty time tied to the start of the duty period, as well as the number and type of sectors to be operated. Such systems are in place in other states and are advocated by IFALPA. Crew augmentation programs should be enhanced on long-haul flights to ensure proper rest facilities exist before increased duty periods are considered. Standards governing reserve crews need to be carefully looked at in order to allow proper identified rest periods and ensure that we are not creating a window of opportunity for an accident to happen.
I would like to comment very briefly on the AWOS systems being installed across Canada. We agree with the concerns expressed by the B.C. Aviation Council, but we would not limit our concerns to the West Coast. The AWOS sensing technology is still at a fairly early stage and, as progress is made, the reliability of the system will certainly improve. Until the technology can reliably detect thunderstorms, for example, and can consistently and accurately report the existing conditions, it should not be considered for use as a primary weather observation system.
There are also considerable accuracy problems in detecting visibility. Current units generally overstate visibility during hazy or foggy conditions. When conditions change, either for the better or for the worse, it is imperative that this information is accurately passed to the flying public in a timely manner. This could make the difference between attempting an approach into an airport that is totally covered by fog, landing where the airport is experiencing a thunderstorm, or going to your alternate. Such changes, if known, can make the difference between a successful flight and an accident. Since AWOS may be the sole method of reporting weather at an alternate airport, the accuracy on visibility is critical.
It is our position that such technology, in its present form, should not form the primary system of weather observation. Human observation, with all the subtleties and accuracies that it includes, should, for now, remain the mainstay of the system.
We would like to make a comment on the third recommendation in your interim report, which recommends allowing mandatory random drug and alcohol testing. It is dangerous to use too general a statement on the need for such a program. There are, of course, many areas within the transportation sector, and I can only speak for the aviation industry.
As I stated in the opening comments, our members are professional airline pilots. As an industry, we undergo much more rigorous testing than is required in almost any other career. In any given year, there is at least one thorough medical exam -- two if you over 40 years of age -- including an electrocardiogram. There is at least one, and more than likely two, training and check ride, and three additional simulator Line Oriented Flight Training -- or LOFT -- sessions if your employer has a LOFT program. There are line checks, ground school, and emergency procedures training. There is cockpit resource management, or CRM, training. These are all mandated by regulation. Additional training programs are required by individual careers. Failure of any portion of any of these training programs can effectively end your career as a pilot.
The point is that, as professional pilots, we feel we are already regulated to the nth degree. Unless there is a demonstrated need for such a program, it should not become part of this battery of testing that we undergo each year. As a group, we take our responsibilities very seriously. More efficient and cost-effective methods of detection and control are available and in use in the aviation industry. Peer group monitoring and assistance programs allow for early recognition and offer assistance for the individuals affected. Of course, the cooperation of the employer airline and the regulator are required. Such programs are already enjoying success in the United States and Canada.
As an association, we do not disagree with testing for cause, but we strongly oppose random drug and alcohol testing.
In your interim report, one comment on airport security causes me great concern. It appears towards the end of section C and states:
The intense concentration on airport security in both the United States and Europe is inevitable given the propensity for terrorist attacks at major airports in these areas.
This seems to indicate an attitude that security should not be as much of a concern in Canada as it is in other states. Unfortunately, due to exactly that atmosphere of relaxed security, Canada has become a haven for terrorists and a staging area for them. In fact, most of the known terrorist groups operate within our country. We should not be congratulating ourselves on our lack of need for special security measures. We should be tightening our security loopholes so that Canada is no longer offering easy access to the United States through its air transport system.
Almost hidden in the interim report, along with security issues, was a single item on airport safety. First, I would like to state that many safety issues are currently being worked on by this association and others. Incentives such as fire-fighting, airport signage and markings, land and hold short operations, or LAHSO, and reduced separation standards to enhance airport capacity are only scratching the surface. None of these are mentioned in the report. What is mentioned is the single issue of bird hazards and, furthermore, the report alludes that this problem is a safety problem unique to the Vancouver airport.
Bird and wildlife strikes to aircraft are a problem at virtually all of the airports in Canada and around the world, and they cost airlines upwards of $500 million per year in damage repair and downtime. Transport Canada must be commended for spearheading a world class program aimed at identifying the extent of the problem, bringing the problem to the attention of the industry, and investigating ways to mitigate the problem. Unfortunately, there is no "one size fits all" solution, because there is such a diversity of locations.
How big is the problem? In 1996 a United States Air Force AWACS surveillance aircraft ran through a flock of geese on take off from Elmendorf Air Force Base in Alaska. The aircraft lost two engines due to ingestion, rolled over and crashed. Twenty-four service men were killed and the aircraft was totally destroyed. In 1986, a B1 Bomber was brought down by a single American pelican. The cost for this single aircraft was U.S. $215 million.
Current certification standards for even the newest aircraft in the world's fleet, the Boeing 777, only allow for the ingestion of a 2.5 pound bird. Even that guarantees the engine will continue producing power for only 20 minutes. Anything larger and the engine will probably be sufficiently damaged to the point of not producing power. A goose weighs 12 pounds, and the bird populations are increasing at an alarming rate. Older aircraft types such as the DC-9 or the 100 and 200 series of the Boeing 737 are still in wide use by the major carriers in Canada. These aircraft are certified to even lower ingestion standards.
A British Airways 747-400 on a missed approach to Montreal last year flew threw a flock of geese at night. Two engines were destroyed. Luckily the aircraft managed to land safely. The problem is not unique to Vancouver. In fact, in 1998, Toronto's Pearson Airport reported the highest number of bird strikes of any Canadian airport.
The Air Line Pilots Association fully supports continued activities to decrease the bird and wildlife hazard danger at airports in Canada and around the world, and it participates in them.
I would be remiss if I did not mention the situation of fire-fighting at Canadian airports, because I spend a good portion of my volunteer time sitting on Technical Committee III of the Canadian Aviation Regulations Advisory Council, or CARAC. That committee is formulating the new regulations and standards.
Under current regulations, only 28 major airports in Canada are required to provide any on-site fire-fighting service. This means aircraft carrying over 2 million fare-paying Canadian passengers land or take off at airports where there is no one to help them if something goes wrong.
Even at the 28 airports that do provide coverage, there are some serious concerns about the level of service that is provided, particularly at the smaller airports. In order to save lives, intervention must be effective -- that is to say, sufficient equipment and personnel to make a difference must be available, and action must be immediate. Any response that is more than three minutes away will become a clean-up operation in the event of a major fire. Intervention within the three minutes -- and preferably within two minutes as per ICAO recommendations -- can save lives. Canada is not yet at that point. The Air Line Pilots Association is on record as opposing some of the current regulations and standards for fire-fighting.
On the positive side of fire-fighting, the Minister of Transport recently announced a proposed set of regulations that would cover the non-designated airports. Although we are still in the early stages of rulemaking, it does signify a commitment on the part of the minister and Transport Canada to bringing Canadian airports closer to the recognized worldwide standards. I fear that we still face opposition from the airport operators, who are trying to justify increased costs to their local airport authorities, and from the air carriers who will be asked to pay for the increased service.
Another area of recent airport safety activity has been in developing procedures and standards for simultaneous intersecting runway operations, or SIRO. This is known as land and hold short operations -- LAHSO -- in the United States. LAHSO has recently been brought to the forefront in the United States. Although Canada does not utilize this capacity-enhancing program to the degree that our southern neighbours are using it, airport operators are increasingly using SIRO to enhance airport capacity. Current regulations do not adequately address our safety concerns.
The problem is to develop procedures and standards that prevent two aircraft from arriving at the same point at the same time. This is basically an exercise in geometry and distance calculations. Imagine, for a moment, two runways in a T layout. If an aircraft can land on the cross runway at the same time that an aircraft is departing on the other runway, then capacity at that airport is dramatically improved. Of course, this means that the landing aircraft must hold short of the departure runway. There must obviously be sufficient runway length available for an average pilot to accomplish this. But what happens if, for some reason, this landing aircraft is unable to stop in time or does a missed approach?
Now we set the stage for the two aircraft to meet at or over the intersection. There are any number of reasons for this to happen. A misjudged landing resulting in an overshoot, brake or anti-skid failure, gusty wind conditions, decreased stopping ability due to wet or slippery runway conditions or something as simple as landing just a little bit further down the runway than normal.
Urgent consideration needs to be given to the establishment of regulations governing such things as the minimum stopping distances related to aircraft types, especially on wet runways. Such consideration must also be given to the training of flight crews and controllers, the geometry of the particular airport -- which dictates the possibility of turning to avoid a collision during a missed approach, air traffic control procedures, signage and, for night operations, lighting systems to designate the hold short point.
The Air Line Pilots Association International remains committed to advocating world class levels of safety, both for our members and for the travelling public.
Aviation is a dynamic subset of transportation. It is changing all the time as new technology comes into play, as airports change and grow, and as carriers respond to the increased demands for passenger travel by introducing new services and new aircraft. During this constant period of change, it is imperative that we do not lose sight aviation safety's ultimate goal, and that is to save lives.
The FAA has stated that it aims to reduce the accident rate in its jurisdiction to zero. That would be no mean feat, considering the unprecedented expansion of aviation in that country. In fact, if the current accident rate remains unchanged, we could be suffering a major hull loss every week to ten days worldwide by the year 2010.
We need to come out loud and clear on the side of aviation safety. We are very aware of the fiscal restraints faced by our industry, but we stand committed to ensuring that Canada provides the very safest aviation system possible for our membership and for the travelling public.
Mr. Chairman, honourable senators, I would now open the floor for any questions.
Senator Roberge: You say that you cover 11 airlines in Canada. Are there any major ones that are not covered? I am talking about Canada 3000 and those types of airlines.
Mr. Perkins: We do not cover First Air and Royal Airlines. I think those are the major ones. The rest would all be tier 2 carriers -- smaller carriers.
Senator Roberge: For those that do long flights, though, like Royal and First Air, I am sure they are also experiencing pilot fatigue. Are their members as well protected as your members are?
Mr. Perkins: At First Air, they have their own association, an in-house association. I believe it is called the First Air Pilots Association. I am not sure what Royal does.
Senator Roberge: You said that new regulations for fire-fighting for the other airports are being prepared. Are you involved in their preparation, or are you aware of those regulations?
Mr. Perkins: Yes, I am involved with the committee that is developing them.
Senator Roberge: Are there certain guidelines that you would like to see?
Mr. Perkins: Transport Canada has drafted a set of proposals. They were given to us at the Technical III committee in May. We are looking at them over the next several months, and we are meeting again in September to debate them and to develop the actual final regulations. Historically, that process takes several months. I would guess at this point that we would be looking at something around the end of 1999 to go to a Gazette 1-type stage.
Senator Roberge: Is zero used in Canada?
Mr. Perkins: Yes, it is.
Senator Roberge: At which airports?
Mr. Perkins: It is used extensively at three major airports: Vancouver, Calgary and Toronto. There is a current desire to extend that on an official basis -- I believe it is up to 18 airports.
Senator Roberge: Who is responsible for that? Is the decision to use it up to the local airport authority, or is it NAV CANADA?
Mr. Perkins: If someone right now wishes to begin using it, then they can do so. Right now there are very few regulatory constraints.
Senator Roberge: Who is responsible for purchasing the system?
Mr. Perkins: It is not a system that you purchase as such. It is merely a procedure. That is part of the problem. Our position is that it should become more of a system. There should be hardware involved with this. There should be specific signage, and there should be specific lighting systems. There should be specific air traffic control procedures and pilot training. All of this should be combined in a package before it can be effectively and safely used. Right now, there is none of that.
Senator Roberge: You have not spoken about unruly passengers.
Mr. Perkins: No.
Senator Roberge: Is there any particular reason that you did not mention it? Would you like to elaborate on it?
Mr. Perkins: I did not want to take half an hour to do the presentation here.
Senator Roberge: This issue, however, is becoming more and more important.
Mr. Perkins: As a matter of fact, recently a Delta Airlines flight heading to Europe from Atlanta had to turn back to Bangor. Two flight attendants are in hospital because of an unruly passenger.
It is becoming a very important problem, both in Canada and the United States.
Senator Roberge: I know there is nothing we can do about the situation in other countries, but are you satisfied with our laws and our regulations?
Mr. Perkins: For the time being, they are heading in the correct direction. We are heading towards a situation where a passenger who does not follow the direction of the flight crew or causes a disturbance on board will suffer a penalty. No airline wants to put its passengers in jail. More and more often, however, the airlines are treating such actions as very serious offences and acting accordingly, and that is good.
Senator Perrault: During the course of your remarks you said the Air Line Pilots Association is on record as opposing some of the current regulations and standards for fire-fighting. Can you cite a couple that are particularly offensive?
Mr. Perkins: Under the current regulations, the response times are three minutes to the midpoint of the farthest runway. Unfortunately, that is not where the accidents happen. Accidents statistically happen -- 85 percent of them -- at the ends of the runways in that geographic area. Obviously, it takes more time to get there, and anything over two minutes is pushing the envelope.
Senator Perrault: You offer an extremely grim and chilling prospect for the future. However, the news reports about the crash in the United States the other day indicated that this was the first major crash in two years. If that is true, the trend seems to be moving in the opposite direction. Was pilot error a factor in the most recent crash?
Mr. Perkins: It is way too early to comment on anything about that particular crash. Overall, the industry is very safe, and I cannot state anything other than that. What is happening at the same time, however, is that the accident rate remains virtually unchanged. We are having a heck of a time trying to bring the rate down. While that is staying constant, the numbers of operations are climbing day by day, year by year.
Senator Perrault: That would be the recipe, then, for more incidents?
Mr. Perkins: That is right. The rate stays constant, but there are more chances that this will happen.
Senator Perrault: I am from Vancouver, and they say that our airport is for the birds in the bad sense. We have some falcons out there who are mighty efficient. I understand that they are training falcons even now to help cope with this problem. Is that true?
Mr. Perkins: That is true. There are any number of programs out there that range from falconry and dogs, to letting the grass grow long, to treating the grass areas with distasteful chemicals so the birds will not go there, to actually physically going out and shooting the birds. No single item works.
Senator Perrault: Is there anything involving electronics or lasers?
Mr. Perkins: The technology on this is constantly evolving. I was at a bird strike conference in Vancouver last month. One of the items there was a laser rifle, the idea being that you target the birds with this laser rifle and it scares them away. That is great, so long as you do not hit an airplane at the same time. We are concerned about this. I sent some of the documentation away to our laser expert, because whenever lasers and airplanes get together we get a little nervous.
There are a number of programs in use across the country, and they are effective programs. They do work, but no single approach will work all of the time. The situation is that we have to constantly change and evolve with the changing demographics of the birds. Certain things will work with one bird, but they will not work with another one.
Senator Perrault: When it comes to unseemly conduct in the passenger section, are these people inflicted with psychiatric problems or is it mostly due to liquor? I was on an United Airlines flight, and it was just unbelievable. Some people were returning from a convention, and they insisted on serving food to all of the passengers. They told the flight attendants to get away, because they were going to become flight attendants for a day. Ultimately it was in the news, and they were hauled before the authorities.
Mr. Perkins: I do not want to get into evaluating the psychiatric stability of some passengers that I have seen. On the whole, I would say that they are otherwise relatively normal people, and something has set them off.
Senator Perrault: Perhaps they are drinking too much.
Mr. Perkins: That could be.
Senator Perrault: It is certainly a hazard.
Mr. Perkins: It is a hazard on a number of fronts. Obviously, there is a physical assault component, a sexual assault component, and a harassment component. In addition, there is the physical danger to the aircraft and the rest of the passengers, as well as to the flight crew.
Senator Perrault: If you were in government and you suddenly found that there were millions of dollars available to spend, where would you start? What is the number one priority?
Mr. Perkins: With safety?
Senator Perrault: To have a better air industry. Safety would be part of it, but would it be the first action that you took?
Mr. Perkins: One of the biggest problems that we seem to face as an industry is all tied to the privatization of the airports across the country. Quite often what has happened, and it shows up quite dramatically in the fire-fighting aspect of it, is that the airport used to be a government entity, or at least government subsidies or funding were available to it.
When the airport switches to a local airport authority, they take over operations and financial consideration for that airport. They want it to stand on its own as a financial entity. In other words, it must make money, or at the very least break even.
That is the way a lot of the airport operators are acting or operating. One of the best things that we could do with these untold millions of dollars that you found would be to try to remedy that a little bit by creating some sort of a program for the smaller airports. Airports like Toronto, Vancouver, and Ottawa make money, and they are self-supporting ventures.
Senator Perrault: You are thinking of the other 24 or 28 airports?
Mr. Perkins: Yes. I am referring to the ones that may not be making money, but that do perform an essential service for the community. That is to say, they bring in a lot of tourists and a lot of business people, and they bring in a lot of revenues for the businesses within the community. This is not factored into the operating financial structure of the airports, but I feel that it should be.
Mr. Keith Miller, Transport Consultant to the Committee: Getting back to these millions of dollars that Senator Perrault is going to find for us, there has been a lot of talk about an aviation trust fund that would use excise taxes on gasoline for these airports, and we have heard several submissions on that. Would you be in favour of such a program?
Mr. Perkins: Any program that would provide funding for additional safety-enhancing measures at the airports, either the 28 or non-28, would be very welcome.
Mr. Miller: The very last paragraph of your brief summarizes your opinions on urgent needs, and it seems to me that they all relate to regulations. Am I correct in that assumption?
Mr. Perkins: Yes.
Mr. Miller: At this time, we have no regulations at all in relation to wet runways or training of flight crews and controllers, et cetera. There are no regulations. That is what I am trying to establish.
Mr. Perkins: At present, there are very few regulations on SIRO in Canada. There is no training component to it, either for the flight crew end or for the controller end. The signage requirement is not being met, nor is the lighting requirement. As far as the stopping distances of the aircraft involved are concerned, there are errors in the table currently in use.
There is, in fact, a little bit of information on wet runways. Basically what they are saying is that, yes, you can do it on wet runways, but you cannot do it on a contaminated runway, one that is covered in snow or slush. That is about the extent of it. That is what the regulatory issues in Canada currently state.
Mr. Miller: Surely all of your flight crews are trained by your member airlines, and then they are licensed by Transport Canada. What else are you suggesting be done with respect to the training of flight crews?
Mr. Perkins: This would be specific to the procedure and to the airport.
Allow me to present a scenario. We are coming in on a runway, and an aircraft taking off on a cross runway will cross our path. We should be on the ground, but he is taking off. For whatever reason, some vehicle pulls out on to the runway I am landing on, and I cannot land there any more. I have to go around. This other fellow is already airborne and now I am heading right for him.
I am really busy at this point in time, because I have an airplane that is going up. I have to get the gear up; I have to get the flaps up; I have to get the power set; and I am heading right for this other guy. I will be there in about five seconds. I need a set of procedures to follow, be it an immediate turn to a specific heading, level off, one guy levels off, one guy climbs, whatever.
Whatever they are developing, it needs to be something that I do not have to think about. It is the same situation as when I have an engine failure. It is not something I think about, it is something that I am trained to do instinctively. After the problem is taken care of, I go back and confirm that I did everything correctly. The initial reaction, however, involves memory items that have to be done right away.
Senator Roberge: I have a supplementary on that point. Why do pilots sometimes land when the visibility is poor? Is it because our regulations and our procedures are not strong enough? I give you the example of Fredericton. In addition, there is the recent situation in Arkansas, where they are now saying that visibility was bad.
Mr. Perkins: That question brings up another issue. It is called an approach ban. In Canada, the requirement is for a very specific limit on the approach visibility in order to do the approach. That visibility is 1,200 feet horizontal visibility, if you are going into an airport with a instrument landing system, an ILS, like Fredericton. The same airport in the United States, for example, would have a minimum of 1,800 feet visibility. The limits are a little bit higher in the U.S.
In Canada, the limit is 1,200. If I were to take that instrument landing system out of Fredericton, the visibility requirement would also disappear, and I could go in there and try to land at zero visibility.
Senator Roberge: There is no regulation for that?
Mr. Perkins: There is no regulation for that.
Senator Roberge: Are you suggesting that we should have stronger and stricter regulations?
Mr. Perkins: Most definitely. We should have regulations that prevent people from trying to go and have a look at the approach. There should be a regulation that says if you are not at this specific value, a specific number -- and you can graduate it for the different type of approach, the different type of aircraft -- you are no longer legally able to do the approach.
Senator Roberge: On IFR, would you suggest also that our regulations should come closer to the American regulations?
Mr. Perkins: In the interests of harmonization strictly, I would say yes. However, I am not going to commit to saying that the U.S. regulations are the best in the world. They may be, but they may not be.
Mr. Miller: Your brief is fairly hard-hitting in calling for regulations in a wide variety of areas, and I wanted to establish that.
Have you read the National Transportation Safety Board report on the accident in Fredericton?
Mr. Perkins: Yes.
Mr. Miller: Some of those areas, it seems to me, are covered in that report. Their recommendations are the same as yours. Did you notice that?
Mr. Perkins: Yes.
Mr. Miller: We heard a lot about air rage. We are beginning to think that the solution is twofold. First, we need a change to the Criminal Code in Canada, and second, action through ICAO for those incidents that involve international air travel. Would you like to comment on that?
Mr. Perkins: I will use the United States as a reference point. I understand that a proposal to do exactly that is currently before the FAA. They would like to revise the law to create a system of fines and penalties for unruly passengers.
Mr. Miller: Earlier, you remarked that airlines did not wish to put their passengers in jail. If this problem is to be solved, however, that may well have to happen.
Mr. Perkins: That is true. I personally have had a passenger who was taken off the airplane by the RCMP, and charges were pressed against him.
Mr. Miller: A minor point for the record, although it is not so minor to the committee. You gave the impression earlier in your presentation that you were asked specifically about crew rest or fatigue. The committee is really interested in all facets of air transportation security, but you have covered that later in your report, and I think you have covered it well. I do not have any further questions, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman: The Air Canada Pilots Association, in making the point about the difficulties of coping with unruly passengers, told the story of a passenger becoming so bad that they had to land in Miami out of Jamaica, in an attempt to put him off in Miami. The authorities there, however, would have nothing to do with him. He was not an American citizen. The violation did not occur on American soil or in American airspace, and they indicated that this was not their problem. That poses a very serious safety question. I do not know how it will be done, but we will strongly urge Canada to take the lead in this.
We have been so alarmed about this situation that we have caused some investigative work to start today. Perhaps the solution would lie in an international treaty, and the international governing bodies like ICAO could do whatever they could to persuade countries to sign the treaty. This is a matter dealing with criminal law. It is not a matter dealing with process. If it were just process, a lot of simple tools could be used to achieve that end. Perhaps a treaty is one of the answers.
The horror stories being told by some of the flight attendants are appalling. Nobody should have to put up with that. If it is that bad and getting worse, perhaps some other serious measures might have to be contemplated. For example, we may have to consider putting policemen on board aircraft on routes that the attendants identify as typically being difficult to manage.
How strongly do you feel about this business of protection -- not only of your flight attendants, but also of other passengers and the flight crew? Is this a major issue with ALPA? What are you doing about it?
Mr. Perkins: The simple answer to your question is that yes, it is a major issue. The degree to which the individual airline or crew is exposed to such behaviour is often geographically related.
I understand that a lot of the local carriers down in Florida have problems with this, particularly ones that are flying back and forth to some of the islands, because they have a lot of deportee situations down there. The last I heard is that the police would bring a person out to the airport in leg irons and handcuffs, put him on the airplane. and say, "He is all yours". No escort, no accompaniment of any know. This person does not really want to go wherever the plane is taking him or her, and has a tendency to take it out on the flight crew and the flight attendants. It is a very untenable situation.
Flying between Timmins and Sudbury is probably not as much of a problem. In many areas, though, it is a very definite problem. In the U.S., I believe that policy requires the flight deck door to be locked during flight. In Canada, we do not yet have that rule. If the situation continues, however, I can see it coming at some point in time.
Mr. Miller: I think a ballerina could kick those doors in without her shoes on.
Mr. Perkins: You are probably right.
The Chairman: I would want it that way. I do not want you stuck in there under any circumstances.
Mr. Perkins: I would like to ask Keith Hagy to add something to that. He is probably more familiar with the U.S. aspect of it than I am.
Mr. Hagy, Manager of Accident Investigation, Air Line Pilots Association: The association believes that any unruly passenger on an aircraft needs to be -- and should be -- prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. That is our position. The association is involved in a number of activities on that in the United States and in Canada.
As one of the committee members mentioned, there is a proposal to revise the Criminal Code in Canada to stiffen the penalties for unruly and disruptive passengers. You also pointed out the need for a treaty. There is a definite need fort that. That is the role ICAO has to assume, so that situations do not arise like the one that Air Canada faced, where they had to make a diversion into Miami. They tried to remove a passenger who was endangering the safety of their passengers and their crew. However, because there was no treaty the authorities in Miami did not know what to do with the individual since he was not a U.S. citizen and was outside of their jurisdiction.
The Chairman: What happens on a U.S. carrier? If there is a problem over the Atlantic with a passenger who is going to Turkey, for example, will British authorities at Heathrow take that individual? Do individual protocols exist between carriers to provide for this, or are there government-to-government covenants or agreements?
If you are flying from Chicago to Milwaukee or Toronto to Ottawa, there is no great problem. You only took half an hour ago, you will be on the ground in half an hour, and you are in a jurisdiction that has competency. Even if a non-Canadian is flying between two Canadian terminals, you will not have any problem getting him off your plane and the authorities will sort out it out later on. What about going into Europe?
Mr. Perkins: I am not aware of any established protocol for that. However, I will look into it. I can let you know.
The Chairman: Do you cooperate in any way with flight attendant unions? If so, is this a question that you might discuss from time to time in workshops?
Mr. Perkins: They are involved in the working groups that are looking at these issues. Both CUPE within Canada and the flight attendant unions in the United States are involved in their own individual workshops within the collective countries.
The Chairman: In the United States, do you have an umbrella representative group for flight attendants?
Mr. Hagy: Yes, sir, there are two. The Association of Flight Attendants covers the flight attendant groups at about 15 to 16 different airlines in the U.S., and the Association of Professional Flight Attendants covers the flight attendants at American airlines. Those are the two major groups.
The Chairman: Should matters develop where useful ideas that need support begin to appear, we are more than anxious to ferret them out and to push them a little bit, if that is what is necessary.
As you may know, the current Aeronautics Act is almost 70 years old. It has served us well, but it is now time for that piece of legislation to be put aside, and for a new one to be developed. We had great ambitions around this table of making that a centrepiece of our report, but the study has been much broader. The time goes by so quickly and there is so much to understand and learn that, for the first three years, we have been in that curve. We are convinced, however, that we need a new Aeronautics Act.
Do you feel that the present codification and CARS and all the efforts that have been made are now somewhat ad hoc -- that you are adopting them as you are developing them? You have a problem, so you adopt a procedure to overcome the problem, all of which has no statutory base in law. Rather, it has a base in that it is a useful solution, it makes sense, so people will support it as long as it works. That is its only support, however.
Do you think that a new Aeronautics Act would be a useful document for Canada as we go into the next millennium? It will probably last that long.
Mr. Perkins: I certainly think that the existing document has served us well. It has gotten us from the Wright brothers and the Silver Dart up to the present. I do not think that a new document would necessarily be the way it had to be done. There would be a lot of merit in just entirely revamping the existing one.
The Chairman: What is the difference? You would have to start with the title.
Mr. Perkins: Allow me to look at the way the regulation change in the last ten years was handled. We did have air regulations before, and they basically gave us the new Canadian Air Regulations, developed an entirely new process to develop them, asked for all this input from users in industry and then proceeded to write an entire set of new regulations. Unfortunately, they did not work. We have spent the last three years rewriting all the regulations that we just rewrote, because the ones that we wrote originally were not cutting it. They were not able to adequately describe the problem and make the system safe.
I would be very wary that starting right from scratch again without some really good base on an Aeronautics Act would take us down the same road.
The Chairman: It is one thing to codify your laws. It is another thing to attempt to codify regulations. When regulations are no longer applicable they are simply not used, but they are there and they remain there. They are an impairment to the overall capacity of a regulatory process to enhance safety. In other words, if there is a plane in front of me within five or six seconds, I have an immediate cure. I have a rosary bead that I keep in my pocket. That is a very difficult situation.
Let us turn to the area of regulatory reform in the air. Now that we have gotten through the economics, and we have open skies, it seemed to me that there was a natural tendency to consider that we might need new legislation. Perhaps, though, we should wait until things settle down. When are we going to get to the end of getting bigger or, conversely, are we going to build more runways? Perhaps we should not be in a hurry to do an act, because the cards are not all on the table.
I have come to the conclusion, however that the cards will never all be on the table. This is an evolving world of technology and science and flying. I used to think that we should wait, and that used to be the sentiment that I observed in Transport Canada.
I no longer believe that we should wait. I believe that we need a tidy, clean act. If you would rather stay where you are and go with your committees and the development of reactive regulation, would you indicate why you would prefer that to the protection of statute law?
Mr. Perkins: For the very reasons that you stated in your opening -- that the act itself as it is now is 70-some odd years old, and in your estimation it is not adequate for whatever reason.
The Chairman: When was the last time you looked at the Aeronautics Act?
Mr. Perkins: It has been several years.
The Chairman: I know the point you are making.
Mr. Perkins: I do not see a reason to put it within the statutes as opposed to within the regulatory structure.
The Chairman: I am not suggesting that you do away with regulations. That is how you run things. I am suggesting that safety is enhanced when the regulations have such regulatory authority. With legislation, however, you cannot help but be more certain of the force of the regulation, and of the penalties for a failure to abide by the regulations.
Most people that we have talked to so far seem to think that it may be time for a new Aeronautics Act. They believe that legislation might enhance the aspect of lending strength and protection. You have to work every day, and every day you bend a regulation. You have to face the consequences of that. You would feel a lot safer if you knew that that regulation had the force of law, because you would understand what the law meant and you would use the regulation to get on with your work.
Thank you, gentlemen. We appreciate your appearance before us today.
Our next witness is Mr. Ken Johnson, from the Transportation Safety Board of Canada. We welcome you back. Your earlier visit with us was very fruitful and informative.
Mr. Ken Johnson, Executive Director, Transportation Safety Board of Canada: Many of the members of this committee are quite familiar with the board. I do not think I have seen Senator Perrault here before, though. I first encountered you more than 30 years ago, when you replaced Tommy Douglas as our MP.
The independent transportation accident investigation philosophy was a long time coming in Canada. There were a number of studies over 20 or 30 years. Senator Forrestall had a bill to introduce independent investigation when he was an MP, and there was a bill called C-40, which was to introduce the office of a commissioner of transportation accident investigation to cover fatal accidents in all the modes of transport. That died on the order paper long ago.
In 1978 there was a Pacific Western Airlines accident at Cranbrooke, British Columbia. The investigation was criticized. The investigators were seen as being less than competent, and less than objective. There were accusations that they were destroying or hiding information.
Following that, Justice Dubin was appointed, and he did an almost two-year study into aviation safety in Canada. He proposed an independent aviation safety board just to cover the one mode, and that came into being in 1984. That board had some very good initial successes, and it was based on principles that were very carefully worked out and that still apply to the legislation we have today.
The board was to be independent of the Department of Transport or any other government department, as independent as possible of the court processes, independent of the carriers, independent of the unions, and it was to be there on behalf of the people of Canada. It was to be objective, and all sorts of things were put into the legislation to try and ensure that. It was to operate openly. Again, there was much in the legislation to ensure open operation of the board. Its processes were to be fair.
Then there was the priority that Parliament put on safety, and it provided special incentives for people to be able to talk to investigators and bring the safety information out more quickly than it would come out any other way. If there was a dispute between what the accident investigator was looking for and what the regulatory inspector was looking for, the information would go to the accident investigator of parliament, who would say, "It is more important to deal with the safety issues than it is to punish the people who may have done things wrong."
The investigators were given very great powers. Those powers were much wider than police powers, because they were responsible for bringing forth safety problems, and the results of their work would not deny people their employment or send them to jail. Obviously, there was not really much threat associated with those powers. The powers were really to bring safety information forward very quickly.
Cooperation was built in. The board is required by the statute to cooperate with other agencies, with coroners, and with other people doing work in the transportation safety area. Its work was confined to an object statement in the statute, which said that it was to conduct independent investigations for the purpose of making findings as to or about causes and contributing factors to identify safety deficiencies, and to report them publicly. That is a much more comprehensive mandate than any other accident investigation agency has in any other country.
We clearly have the best legislation of any country in the world. Some other countries are presently doing reviews. One was just done in New Zealand, and reviews are underway in the U.K. and in Australia. In all cases, they are looking at things that will bring them closer to where we already are.
It is a special thing to be able to work in an industry that I love and, at the same time, to have the best mandate that there is anywhere in the world for doing the job that we have been given to do.
The work that was done by the Aviation Safety Board was seen as a success by the government, and they quickly decided that they would have the multi-modal board that we have today. The work toward that was proceeding at a pretty relaxed pace when the dispute arose about the Gander accident and the American soldiers a number of years ago. That encouraged the government to bring a new legislation along more quickly, and that was done.
The new board got off to careful start in 1990, and it gradually built up its expertise and its acceptability to the Canadian public. The real defining event has been the accident of Swissair 111. It has tested our skills, our ability, and the principles of the legislation. We are pretty comfortable that what we have been given to work with is still very good. We are also seeing, as a result of this work, that there are some things that we can consider, both now and in the future.
The mission of the Transportation Safety Board is very clear, and we are comfortable with that. We are associated with an industry where technological changes are very rapid. The air carrier arrangements around the world are changing very quickly, and there is no question that this legislation needs to be revisited from time to time in order to bring it up to date.
The last amendment to the legislation went through about a year ago, and it certainly brought us some improvements. Since then, they have come up with one or two things in the U.K. that we had not thought of, and in New Zealand they are looking at a couple of things that we had not considered.
There are also things that we were not successful with, such as getting authority to do post-accident medicals that would involve things like the drawing of blood. We do not want to get into the policing business of seeing whether people were legally impaired. We are interested in seeing what is inside people's bodies to determine whether they have over-the-counter or prescription medicine in them that may affect their performance, whether they have fumes from a cockpit or spray, or whatever. We think that would be a useful addition. We know very well that there are also many objections to that sort of thing, but we would like to bring the arguments forward once again.
From the time that we start to look at the legislation and come up with the ideas, we find that it probably takes five years to put it in place. Therefore, a year after the last amendment it probably the time to start thinking about what to do next.
The standards of the organization are somewhat set by the legislation. The operational standards are quite well defined. The moral and ethical standards are not, and I guess they probably cannot be defined in legislation. However, the character of the investigators is probably the most important feature of our work. They must be very thorough. They must be tough-minded. They must be willing to stand their ground when they are challenged by very large manufacturers or very large carriers, who would like to change their views a little bit just to make things look better for them. They have to withstand that. At the same time, they have to be wise enough to change their views when someone shows them that they are wrong.
The human part of our organization is dealing with technology that is changing very rapidly, and there are great pressures on the investigators to get work done quickly, and to get it done accurately. In addition, that work is continually challenged.
We have well-qualified and exceptionally dedicated people, but we do not have enough people within our organization to handle the very large accidents like Swissair, and I do not think any single nation does. Even the Americans, who are significantly bigger than we are, had some assistance from us, some from the French, and some from the British when they had the TWA-800 accident in New York. Certainly, we have employed or taken the assistance offered to us by the United Kingdom, by France, by the United States and by some others in the course of this Swissair accident.
We will go to outside commercial experts when there is an opportunity to do that. In a country as small as Canada, though, it is difficult to find people who are expert enough to add value to the kinds of investigations we do without them already being involved in the industry and having a conflict of interest because they represent some other interest at the same time.
As the future comes upon us, we worry more and more about issues like occupational health and safety. Our investigators are equipped with radiation detectors. They have special suits for going into contaminated areas. As materials change from aluminum to more and more carbon fibre materials and that sort of thing, however, there are new risks out there all the time. In the aviation industry, we are always quite concerned about them, as they are in the oil and gas and shipping industries as well.
The training that we give our people is a very significant part of our budget. It always has been, and it always must be. We must keep up with the demands on our people that will be brought about by the changes in technology that we face week by week. Historically, we have been among the top few agencies in expenditures on training per capita. That must always be true, or we will very quickly slide away from being one of the leaders.
We worry sometimes about the public service salaries. They seem to be quite low for the kinds of people we need to do the work. Yet, when we dig around we always seem to get people, and we find people who love the work and decide to stay with us. I do not know whether that will go on forever, but for now we are okay on that.
The relationships that we have are under new demands. The communications element of the accident investigation has absolutely changed since the introduction of CNN, Sky News, and the all-news radio and television stations. There are huge demands on the investigator in charge to come forward and speak. The chairman of our agency finds it useful to go out and establish that our agency really is responsible for the investigation at the outset. All of our investigators have to have a lot of media training, and they face very aggressive questioning.
As recently as ten years ago, we would have thought that 50 people working on an investigation was a huge number. The Swissair accident at its peak was about 5,000, if you count the volunteers who were walking along the beaches and picking up things for us, about 3,000 if we count ourselves, the people from the services, and all the others that were there.
It therefore becomes a job for an executive officer with very good communication skills, as well as a technical background, which is very different from what we were trained for a number of years ago. We have been able to handle the Swissair 111 incident reasonably well, but it has certainly tested us right to the limit. It is expensive to maintain that communication arrangement, but it becomes more and more important as Canadians travel all over the world.
In Canada, we have more independence in what we do, and we have relationships that similar agencies in other countries do not have. We speak for Canada at the International Civil Aviation Organization on matters related to accident investigation. We speak for Canada on matters related to marine investigation at the IMO. The United States sends over its coast guard, and the NTSB does not really get very much to say. We really have a good system. We have a regulator that we sometimes butt heads with, but on balance it is a very enlightened regulator in the overall sense of what we see in other countries.
We work with other accident investigation organizations quite a bit. We have signed an agreement with the International Civil Aviation Organization, where we do provide assistance to countries that have less capability. That is important to be able to do when we have large manufacturers like Bombardier, whose aircraft are flying all over the world.
A competent investigation needs to find out what the safety problems are, and a competent investigation must be done to ensure that a Canadian manufacturer does not take a bad rap as a result of a rotten investigation. We feel that is an important part of our work.
We have been working with the government of Taiwan for the last while, and we have concluded an agreement. They have an accident rate of about seven accidents per million departures, whereas we have about one accident per 2 million departures in North America. They have a significant problem. They have put a lot of resources on it. They have some wonderful people in there. Many of them are people who have come home from teaching at American and British universities, and I think they will work their way through it.
For the future, we certainly have to be continually ready for the big one, whether it is Swissair, a cruise ship, a train with a lot of dangerous goods, or a pipeline accident. Canada's multi-modal transportation board -- a system which exists in only a few other countries -- has a lot of advantages in keeping the agency ready for that sort of thing.
A small group of executives runs the whole thing. We have common standards regardless of the mode of transportation we are dealing with, so Canadians can expect an investigation of a similar degree of competence, no matter what mode of transportation was involved. To some extent, we can draw on people from other modes. We have had marine investigators helping in the situation in the Peggy's Cove area. In fact, they were almost essential, because we really needed their advice and expertise on the hiring of barges and dredges and all of those things that old aviators do not understand too well.
In Canada -- and not many countries have this -- we have a confidential reporting system, where people who encounter safety problems that it is not mandatory to report can report them to the board. We find that we can take safety actions from that, and I believe that we need to build upon that.
Let us consider an example. A mechanic may be working on an engine and put a piece in backwards. It may not have mattered for the time that the airplane flew, but he sees he got it in backwards and he writes a note into the board. He says "I do not want to tell anybody I got this wrong, but it can go in one way or the other and maybe you can have it redesigned so that it only fits one way." Then we send the information over to Transport Canada, and they take the action. It is a very enlightened system. It works reasonably well in aviation. It is developing a bit in railways. It is developing very, very slowly in marine, and we have not even tried it yet in pipelines.
We believe that the analysis of various kinds of data will allow us to do a lot of safety work. There is a big data problem all over the world in transportation. The definitions are not consistent. The gathering is not consistent. The quality of the data in databases is not consistent. There are a number of initiatives around where people are trying to work on it. We believe it is one of the areas where we have to put increased effort in the future if we are remain a leading agency in this kind of activity.
We have to do all sorts of things to make sure that we maintain our independence here. Our people are good and they love their work, but there are other people in the industry who are good and love their work too. Some of them are with Transport Canada. It is very easy for a big agency like a regulator to become dissatisfied with things that we do or that we do not do as quickly as we might, and to say that they will do them for us.
As far as I know, Canada is the only country that has kept that pure separation between regulator and accident investigation. Parliament decided that the safety board would investigate the accidents and incidents for safety purposes. We have done it, and we have done it 100 percent.
In the United States, the FAA has more accident investigators than the accident investigation agency. The U.S. coast guard has more accident investigators than the accident investigation agency. In New Zealand, the regulator gets involved in accidents investigations. It is an unhappy thing. We are very fortunate in that we have a business-like relationship with the regulator -- they do their job, and we do ours. We have an understanding whereby, if they believe something needs to be investigated that we chose not to investigate, they can ask us to investigate it, and we will do so. That arrangement between us has worked well.
The whole business of families and family assistance is a new thing. It is almost as big a thing as communications. When people's relatives are killed, injured, or missing in transportation accidents, there is a huge demand for information. Even in small accidents, we find ourselves spending more and more time making sure the families are kept informed, and making sure that, if something is newsworthy, we tell the families the day before we make it public.
Family assistance is a big thing. We do a part of it. The RCMP also does a big part, and they do it very well. They gather up all the valuables and personal effects and catalogue them. They then do their best to get them back to whoever should have them. The coroner also plays a big role in dealing with the families and telling them about identification.
Quite a few agencies have a part in family assistance, but is not really clear who does what and who should do what. It is very clear that, if there were a very large accident and the family assistance arrangement were not well organized, there would be so many problems that it would not be possible to conduct an orderly investigation.
The Swissair accident went well in that respect, because the world had learned from the TWA accident in the United States. In addition, Delta Airlines had trained so many of its people -- something like 1,600 of them. They had a contract with Swissair, and as soon as the accident took place, Delta, on behalf of Swissair, brought in family assistance. We really have not had serious family problems.
If there were a situation where family assistance was not available, however, it would be chaotic. As yet, we have not worked out who should be doing what as well as we should have. I do not think that any single agency should be doing all of it. There are people, like the NTA, who might be responsible for the system, leaving others to take on specific elements. We have started to talk about it, but we have not worked our way through it. That is certainly one of the things that is quite urgent for us to do, and do well.
The question of flight recorders is a fairly large one. There was an international conference on that in the United States recently. We put together a document on on-board recorders, which would give an operational requirement for aircraft, ships, trains and pipelines. We wanted to ensure that we would get the same quality and amount of recorded information, even though the things actually recorded would be very different in each case. We are trying to work that through the communities. That will be a useful thing.
If I could return to family assistance, in the United States it has been entirely associated with aviation. It is our belief that it is equally important for incidents involving cruise ships, passenger trains, and everything else.
The technical standards that we have are generally good. As I said, we need a lot of training to keep people up to date. There is a big difference between the way we operate and the way they operate in the United States. There, they have a party system, where representatives of the manufacturers and carriers and others actually join the investigation team and become members of it. Here, we do the work ourselves or we hire experts who do not have a conflict of interest. We allow those other people to be observers, and they certainly provide us with a lot of information.
My understanding is that the party system will soon come under some criticism in the United States, because it is just not independent enough to do the kinds of investigations that North Americans, be they Canadians or Americans, demand.
A lot of the problems that we see in accident investigations are well beyond the cockpit of the airplane, the cab of the train, or the bridge of the ship. Our investigators are being taught more about human performance, about management issues, and about financial issues, because very often we have to go back and see what set up the accident. Preparing ourselves for that kind of activity will be a big part of what we will need to do in the future.
We maintain investigators with a current knowledge of the mode, but that tends to be expensive if we have them flying airplanes or operating ships. We are working at ways of doing that more effectively, but it will continue to cost us money.
Technical equipment -- like lab equipment -- is something that we have to continually get and learn about. We try to teach the investigators the principles of scientific inquiry. That is what this kind of work is. It is an application of the principles of scientific inquiry. It is not a black science or some kind of Sherlock Holmes art. It is just plain old slogging and searching for the truth, and it has to be done.
We see areas where we are not as strong as we would like to be. If we are to maintain our position as one of the leading nations in this, we will have to get some strength. A lot of new aircraft are coming into service with these fly-by-wire flight systems and no one, apart from the manufacturers, understands them very well. It is not a good thing for the safety analyst to know less than the industry knows. We have to do some work in that area.
We have a problem that seems to be common among all western countries. We all started to run out of money a few years ago, governments quit hiring people, and then they all went through a downsizing. The result is that the more senior people stayed, and junior ones did not come in behind them. Now, we have a lump of very highly skilled, very senior people who will retire in the next three to five years, leaving a fairly big hole behind. We have to find out how to deal with that, and how to offset that loss of brain power. I have spoken to my counterparts in the United Kingdom, Australia and the United States. We all have the same problem. The industry has the problem, too -- the Boeings, the Airbuses. It is everywhere.
The Chairman: Mr. Johnston, I am glad that you took the time to give us that outline, because it is now part of the record.
I would like to come back to the question of the victims' families. My understanding -- and I would appreciate your reaction to it -- is that, until such time as the accident is fully sorted out, the board ought to be responsible for taking those immediate actions that must be done within minutes and hours, not days and weeks.
My impression is that the Red Cross could eventually develop this kind of an expertise. A large number of people in the national Red Cross have attended the training classes of the two or three airlines that are offering management courses. The immediate reactions after an incident can be very daunting. As some of you may know, in a very short time 60,000 to 80,000 phone calls can be generated by relatives of the 200 missing people.
What kind of a burden would it place on the board if the government were to ask you to assume that responsibility?
Mr. Johnson: It depends how much of it we would be asked to assume. There is clearly a role for us in there, and we have to keep people informed of what we are doing. If it comes to an accident where there are 200 or 300 victims, and for each of the victims you need two or three people to assist the family, by the time the families stretch out a little bit, you easily need 1,000 people to do the counselling. We have 250 people, and we cannot stretch it to 1,000. Therefore, there is no way that we could do it all ourselves. It is unlikely that we will ever be given 1,000 people to do our job.
The Chairman: The supervisory role, the priority response role, is one that could be assumed by the board, using organizations such as the Red Cross. I remember Mrs. Dole addressing that at that conference two years ago and she felt then -- I suppose she has other preoccupations today -- that that might be a role for them.
Mr. Johnson: If we were to expand our role on that, we could certainly do coordinating work, planning, and that sort of thing. If someone does not do what they are supposed to do, however, you get into an enforcement action, and we are anything but an enforcement agency. I do not think that we would be comfortable -- or that the public would be comfortable -- with having us go out chasing people down. There are other people who are much better at that kind of activity than we are.
If someone else has the enforcement part of it, we could, with appropriate resources, do the coordinating and the planning. We could not do all of the direct applications of the work, however, and it would not be appropriate for us to do the enforcement part of it.
Senator Perrault: This has been a very interesting educational seminar this evening -- so many questions emerge here.
You talked about the spraying of planes. I hope it no longer occurs. When I first went to Australia, I felt like a watermelon or a grapefruit. They said remain in your seats and they came with that thing. Do you remember?
Mr. Johnson: Yes, I have seen those, but that is not what I was trying to explain. I was talking about crop-dusting and crop-spraying.
Senator Perrault: I know, but your comments brought it to mind. Do any of the lines still spray the passengers before they are allowed to alight?
Mr. Johnson: The last time that I experienced that was six or seven years ago in the Caribbean. I really do not know if it is still done.
Senator Perrault: We are very proud of the Canadian way in which the Peggy's Cove disaster was handled. Much credit flows to your organization and to the others involved.
Who shares the costs in an operation of that kind? Is there a sharing of costs to offset what must have been a very expensive investigation by our people?
Mr. Johnson: On your point about cooperation, let me say that there has been wonderful cooperation with the province and with the coroner service. There has been superb cooperation with the other federal civil departments like the coast guard. There has been very good cooperation from the military.
Senator Perrault: High marks from every direction.
Mr. Johnson: Absolutely. There is some sharing of the costs among the Canadian components, but there has not been much sharing of the costs with people outside Canada. Swissair has certainly put in a significant amount of money.
Senator Perrault: Is this one of our international responsibilities?
Mr. Johnson: That is right.
Senator Perrault: If a Canadian plane had crashed in Switzerland ---
Mr. Johnson: It would be the opposite. If the stuff falls on your country, you do the investigation.
Senator Perrault: You say that there will be a great need for well-trained and educated younger people as we move through this whole process. What kind of training do they receive? Is it formalized in any sense? Is there a school or institution that specializes in providing the necessary training for these people?
Mr. Johnson: A number of our investigators were trained as aircraft pilots, as captains and engineers of ships, and that sort of thing. We have quite a few psychologists who are experts in human performance. We also have professional engineers and metallurgists. All that comes by way of university training, or from training within the industry.
Beyond that, training is offered by the University of Southern California, Embry-Riddle University, with campuses in Arizona and Florida, and Cranfield in the United Kingdom. Some training is also offered in Sweden.
Senator Perrault: Will it be possible to train these people as required?
Mr. Johnson: Oh yes, and it takes time. Within our own agency, we do a lot of on-the-job training in the various methodologies that we use in investigations.
Senator Perrault: You mentioned the Sky Channel. I missed what you said there.
Mr. Johnson: I was talking about CNN, Sky -- all news TV stations in general, and all news radio stations in general. They just inundate an accident site, and there will be 40 or 50 of those satellite things around going from the reporter back to the broadcasting station.
Senator Perrault: Is that a danger?
Mr. Johnson: I do not think we have seen much of a danger.
Senator Perrault: Some of the terrain there is not that easy. Who decides who should be there?
Mr. Johnson: They just show up. Like the police, we can put a big yellow tape around the accident scene. The police are very good about us helping us protect the sites. Wherever you put the boundary, though, they are going to be three inches beyond it.
Senator Perrault: It is really a practical problem, then.
Mr. Johnson: They demand interviews, and if you do not give them, they have their little directional microphones and things, and they listen to conversations.
Senator Perrault: Are you suggesting, then, that they impede the investigation under certain circumstances?
Mr. Johnson: Either we learn to accommodate them, or they will impede the investigation. They will be there. They are not going to go away. We have to learn to live with it.
Senator Roberge: What are your two major safety concerns for each mode of transport?
Mr. Johnson: In our ordinary work, we tend to rank things as important or not important and not rank them one, two, three. I am having a little difficulty thinking in those terms, but I will try.
In all transportation, we work on some premises that we believe to be true, and that seem to be proven by the work that we do. People in Transport generally like what they do. They generally stay in the industry for a long time, and they are generally proud of what they do. They therefore require fewer regulations and less enforcement than is required in most industries. That said, there are still some things that go wrong, and there are still safety problems.
In the railways, I would say that railway passenger safety is something that we certainly have our eye on. The second area in the railways would be the problems that involve main track derailments and main track head-on collisions.
In the marine mode, watchkeeping and navigation probably is one of the areas. The other problem comes about in fishing -- fishing boats setting out into bad weather, and overloaded fishing boats. Government may, in fact, contribute to that overloading problem to some degree, because the fisheries authorities allow such short fishing periods. Therefore, if the fisher has time for only two trips, he loads the boat up to the gunnels. There might be a smarter way of looking at that, and it is certainly something that we will looking into.
In aviation, understanding the new technologies and dealing with the human performance issues is a very important factor. The aircraft are sophisticated and they are fast. They require good, alert, very highly-trained crews, and if everything works well, it works well. If it does not, there are problems. I am not sure all of the designs accommodate the kinds of errors that should be expected of competent well-trained people, trying to do their best, but still making errors. If the design were to accommodate those errors, we would have fewer accidents.
When it comes to pipelines, the number one issue has been the stress corrosion cracking problem. We do not see a lot of pipeline accidents, so I will just point to the one issue for pipelines.
Senator Roberge: Are you more satisfied now with the speed of reporting coming out from the safety board?
Mr. Johnson: The reports coming to us, or the reports that we put out?
Senator Roberge: The reports that you put out.
Mr. Johnson: I will never be satisfied until we can put them out the day of the accident, and that is not going to happen.
Generally, it is a very tough struggle. It is a continuous balancing of timeliness against completeness. For example, if a modern aircraft equipped with a good flight recorder has an accident, we can do the work pretty quickly.
The marine industry is introducing recorders. That should help some of the marine accidents. Marine will probably always take longer, though, because so much of the ownership is nowhere near where we do our work. If we are gathering information from Monrovia or wherever the ship is registered, it takes a long time. We often have considerable difficulty tracking down owners and the classification of societies and thing. Marine is messy to deal with but, yes, we are making some progress. Not as much as we would like, but it is getting better.
Senator Roberge: I want to go back to your Taiwan situation. We are exporting our know-how to Taiwan.
Mr. Johnson: Yes, we are exporting it, or we are sharing it. A lot of Canadians go to Taiwan, and we think it would be irresponsible for us not to --
Senator Roberge: I am not against that. On the contrary, I think it is smart. I hope we are charging for it and, if we are, is the money being kept in the safety board as revenue or is it going to consolidated revenue?
Mr. Johnson: We cannot stop anything that comes to us from going to consolidated revenue. We have to make our case that it has gone to consolidated revenue. We let them know that we did that, so please give us a bit more. Generally, though, the work that we do overseas is not recovered. Even if it is recovered, we continue to pay the salaries of our people, and have the other country pick up the operating expenses.
The computer programs for analyzing aircraft black boxes were developed here, and they are used by the Americans, the Germans, the French, the Nordic countries, the Australians, and some others. We did all the initial work on that. We licensed the technology to those countries for a dollar, on the understanding that the licence was really to prevent it from being used for commercial purposes. It was not to be used in litigation, where lawyers might get the computer program and, in their view, improve it a little bit to demonstrate their point of view. We have kept it purely within the accident investigation committee.
We bring that group of countries together every year, and we talk about the next set of developments that we will need. We reach an agreement on that, and then everybody pays an equal share towards further development. It is done quite informally without big international agreements, and it works extremely well. To that extent, we do share.
Senator Roberge: You made reference to the salary scale. Do you have any comparison between what you are paying your people and what industry is paying them, or what they would be paid in other countries? Are we way off on that?
Mr. Johnson: I do not think so. On average, we are on the low side. We do have a bit of a retention problem. Our counterparts at Transport Canada have a retention problem. We are going to the Treasury Board together to explain it. We have had some relief, and we hope to get some more.
The Chairman: I would ask you to turn your mind to the Canadian military, who have had an excellent record of accident investigation over the years. It would seem to me that their numbers are now down so low, and there are so few active pilots, that they all know one another. I am not questioning the integrity or the capacity of officers to be objective when conducting a board of inquiry into an incident, but there is still that personal knowledge. At the very least, it promotes the appearance of potential conflict.
In your business you must always avoid conflict, the appearance of it and the reality of it. If we were able to persuade government, through our charm and whatnot, to give you some more money for resources, would you consider taking a priority role in those situations so that there would be no possible conflict? Would you be willing to do that, at least until such time as the strength of our air force was restored to a point where a board of officers could be stuck who did not know one another, and who did not know the officers involved in the incident?
Mr. Johnson: I will preface my answer by saying that we are not seeking to expand our mandate to include the military. However, should the government ask us to do that, and if they were to give us the required resources, there is no question that we could do it.
They have an arrangement like that in the United Kingdom. I am a little uncertain of the facts, but my recollection is that the Air Accidents Investigations Branch, which is the civilian air accident investigation authority, conducts the technical portion of the investigation, and the military does the operational part. That is how one country has resolved this problem.
We can do the investigation independently, either agency could do it all, or there could be some blending. It could be worked out. Most of our air investigators were originally from the military.
The Chairman: Mr. Perkins drew our attention to the fact that it had been said that the bird problem existed only in Vancouver. That is not quite true, but that is as far as our interim report went. Nobody except officials from the airport in Vancouver had mentioned birds. It is not because there are not birds in Toronto, Montreal, Halifax, and Charlottetown. They are all over the place. Could you talk to us for a minute about the bird problem?
Mr. Johnson: It is certainly there, but it is less of a problem than it used to be.
The Chairman: Why is that?
Mr. Johnson: The engines are much more robust than they were, so they are more capable of ingesting the birds without causing damage to the aircraft. Bird control is better than it used to be. The airport operators have bird control programs. They use cannons to frighten the birds away, and they do various other things. Cutting the grass to a length that discourages mice and other prey keeps away the predatory birds.
Vancouver has that big mud flat just west of the airport, and the little dunlins go out there by the thousands. When the tide comes in, they get their tummies wet, and they come over the dyke and stand on the runway. I do not know what they are going to do about that.
The Chairman: In Charlottetown, the seagulls fly 150 feet over the planes, dropping clams to break them.
It is not a growing problem, then. If it is growing, it is growing in terms of the control over it?
Mr. Johnson: Yes. They are getting better about covering garbage dumps so that they do not attract seagulls.
Senator Perrault: They have really tough falcons out there.
Mr. Johnson: Yes, they have falcons that will chase the other birds.
Senator Perrault: They breed them out there and put them to work.
The Chairman: The whole question of the marine overload in the fishery is a fundamental one. Coming up with effective solutions to that problem alone would probably take six months to a year.
I would like to thank you very much. Please accept our good wishes for continued good operations. I am from Nova Scotia, so I was able to witness firsthand the absolutely fantastic job done on the Swissair incident by all concerned. The job was done not just by the chair, but by every single member of the board who was there, by every RCMP officer, by every nurse, by every padre, and by all of the 5,000 to 10,000 people that you had organized.
It was a very organized operation. They were all fed, they were clothed, and they were transported. Everything was done. This fell into place very quickly. There were hundreds and hundreds of volunteers. I would also like to pay tribute to the chief medical examiner who, under great stress, managed to speak to every family at least once, and to some of them many times. In addition, under the circumstances, the pathologist's work in identifying all of the bodies was nothing short of miraculous. We are very aware of their efforts. We ask you to express our sentiments to the chair, to your colleagues, and to the team that is still working on this.
Senator Perrault: Do we know how much longer they will continue working on this? I suppose that it is hard to tell.
The Chairman: The chief said he thought he had another year and a half to go before he would be satisfied. That depended an awful lot on the very minute work that is being done now, like rebuilding ventilators. It is a very meticulous, nitty-gritty job now.
Senator Perrault: What did they do with the wreckage? Is it in a warehouse somewhere?
The Chairman: It is in a building at CFB Shearwater. The board is very kind, and they have offered to take a senator or a group of senators through to let us see just what has been done. You can see the physical aspect of it at Shearwater, and you can see the technical aspect and the brain work in Hull. I would recommend it to anybody who wants to see the magnificent work that is being done very quietly by these unassuming people, who are first class Canadians and who are very dedicated to their task.
Senator Watt: I am trying to take advantage of the fact that you are dealing with the question of safety.
Only last week, we had an incident in the north. This is not the first time it has happened, but we have been able to waive the regulations that are too restrictive and that are sometimes not flexible enough to allow people to be picked up if a life is at stake.
The Chairman: You are talking about the restrictions placed on the number of permissible hours to be flown?
Senator Watt: Yes. I am referring to Canadian Aviation Regulations on flight duty time. On June 2, I wrote a letter to the Minister of Transport.
The Chairman: Perhaps, senator, you might read the letter. It is quite explanatory.
Senator Watt: Yes. Let me give a background picture. I know that safety is very important for airline companies, because I have been involved in several airline companies. I have been the chairman of airline companies, and I have sat on their boards. I fully understand the sensitivity of making sure that safety applies to pilots and passengers.
At times, we overlook the fact that safety considerations for one group can also affect the people at the grassroots level, if there is no other available transportation. That is the case in the north, especially in the isolated and remote communities, where we can only be transported by way of air.
Let me read the letter that I wrote to Minister Collenette. It states:
Dear Minister Collenette,
An emergency occurred on the evening of June 1 which was severely hampered by the restrictions of the Canadian Aviation Regulations re Flight Duty Time regulations. Sarah Ningiuruvik of Kangirsujuaq (Nunavik) was burned severely in a fishing camp accident. Due to the Flight Duty Time restrictions, none of the five air carriers contacted were in a position to respond. Mrs. Ningiuruvik received medical assistance ten (10) hours after the authorities were notified.
Aircraft medivac procedure is the only way to rescue people and save lives. There are no roads!
Over the last 18 months the major carrier in the region, Air Inuit Ltd. submitted proposals to the Transport Canada and the Minister for relief from those restrictions in the event of strict emergencies situations. I am told that Transport Canada has rejected those applications.
I am therefore requesting that the Minister suspend immediately the Flight Duty Time regulations in Nunavik until such rules are modified to permit air-medivac activity at all times.
I felt that I had to put those concerns on the record. I am not sure at this point whether the minister is moving on my suggestions. Safety on the one hand could also endanger the lives of others. That is basically what I am trying to say here.
I have a lot of grievances with NAV CANADA, because the north is going to he hit much harder than the south will be. The smaller you are, the harder you will be hit.
First Air, for example, will have to incur an additional expense of $7 million annually because NAV CANADA is taking over and the government is getting out of the business and privatizing. NAV CANADA has to generate revenue somehow in order to be able to come up with the things that they are outlining to you now.
I just wanted to say that. I am restricting myself to the letter, even though I have a lot of other things that I would like to raise, but there is not enough time for me to do that.
The Chairman: Thank you, Senator Watt. I am sure the senators appreciate your concerns. It will be part of our report, and I am sure that the matter will also come to the minister's attention through other channels.
I wish to thank all our witnesses for their interest in this matter.
The committee adjourned.