Lack of Aviation Oversight ‘Like Fox in Charge of Hen House,’ Consultant Warns

OTTAWA (CP) – Proposed changes to the Aeronautics Safety Act don’t adequately address a lack of federal oversight of airline safety and it’s likely just a matter of time before another Canadian passenger plane goes down because of it, the former head of an inquiry into the 1989 crash of a commuter jet in Dryden, Ont., said Wednesday.

Virgil Moshansky, whose three-year inquiry found “unconscionable safety deficiencies” contributed to the deaths of 24 people aboard the Air Ontario jet, said Transport Canada is handing off too much responsibility to airlines to set and carry out their own safety protocols and monitor regulatory compliance.

“What concerns me about that is you’re relying on the carriers themselves to discover violations or weaknesses in their system,” Moshansky said outside a Commons committee. “Its like the fox being in charge of the hen house.”

Lack of government oversight virtually left Air Ontario to its own devices in 1989, he told the all-party transport committee. The Fokker jet was headed to Winnipeg from Dryden on March 10 when it was allowed to take off with too much snow on its wings and crashed shortly after take-off.

A safety management system like the one proposed in the new act has to be accompanied by an effective, properly financed and adequately staffed system of oversight and enforcement if it is to succeed, Moshansky said.

Smaller, secondary airlines are most vulnerable to the bottom line and pose the greatest risk to aviation safety, often because they do not have the financial resources to maintain a proper safety management system, he said.

“Some are definitely marginal operations from an economic point of view,” he said, “And if it comes down to a question of ‘do we fold up or do we start cutting corners and save some money in order to continue operating,’ the choice is pretty obvious if you don’t have a Transport Canada inspector looking over your shoulder.”

Moshansky’s inquiry made 191 recommendations, most of which were adopted by Transport Canada – including his call for a safety management system. But simply putting it in writing is not enough, he said Wednesday, adding the money has to be there to enforce it.

There were 1,400 aviation inspectors at the time of Dryden and experts told his inquiry the industry was about 400 short then, he said. There are between 800 and 850 now.

“And the aviation industry has grown tremendously in the past 18 years. So you can figure out what the result is.”