Auditor-General accuses Transport Canada of being slack over aviation safety

Transport Canada, the department within the government of Canada which is responsible for developing regulations, policies and services of transportation in the country, has been found guilty of laxity in overseeing the aviation industry properly. 

The Auditor-General of Canada has found that Transport Canada “is not collecting basic safety data and is too overloaded with work to oversee the industry properly,” Canada’s newspaper The Globe and Mail has reported.

In the audit report, obtained under the Access to Information Act, Auditor-General Sheila Fraser also found that “Transport Canada does not know what is the appropriate mix of proper safety oversight of the industry and how many aviation inspectors are required to deliver it.”

The problems arising out of Transport Canada’s sloppiness “could have sweeping implications for air safety in Canada as the federal government looks to transfer an increasing amount of responsibility for oversight and inspections to airlines,” the audit report added.

The Auditor-General’s report also brought to light the following failings:

* As a result of the deficiencies at the Canadian Business Aviation Association – the organisation that represents the interests of business aviation operators, manufacturers, and suppliers – an aircraft operator was granted a licence to fly despite failure to put required safety components in place.
* Flight training programmes whose standards could not be verified were deemed acceptable.
* Officials evaluated flight proficiency at levels above their own training.
* Planes were allowed to fly despite the absence of records to indicate maintenance schedules had been approved.

The Canadian Business Aviation Association (CBAA), which took over responsibility from Transport Canada in 2003 for regulating and licensing planes owned and used privately by companies and organisations, was found lacking in 5 out of 8 areas related to aviation regulations.

The Auditor-General faulted Transport Canada in the audit report thus: “Despite the absence of a clear and established safety oversight programme at Canadian Business Aviation Association and evidence of serious problems, including a lack of penalties for pilots who fail to schedule safety audits, Transport Canada found the organisation could continue operating and issued directions to address the problems.”

The report stressed that problems are caused partly from an unexpected rise in the number of plane operators seeking certificates.

The Globe and Mail quoted Virgil Moshansky, a retired judge who led an inquiry into the 1989 plane crash in Dryden, Ontario, in which 24 died, as remarking on the audit report: “There’s nobody minding the store, so to speak. It suggests to me that we are approaching a crisis state in Canada if this direction is continued to be followed by Transport Canada.”

For one year now, the newspaper pointed out, Moshansky has been protesting against a federal proposal to bring a reduction in government supervision of commercial airlines.

According to media reports, Transport Canada’s oversight in the matter of business aviation industry came into focus after engineering executive and pilot Reagan Williams and four others died in a crash near Wainwright, Alberta. Five months earlier, Williams’ father and another company executive had lost their lives when their plane crashed near Golden, British Columbia.