Canadian runways falling short of international standards: Air France report

Gregory Bonnell, THE CANADIAN PRESS

TORONTO - Runways at Canadian airports are falling short of international standards, and Ottawa needs to mandate extended safety zones to prevent crashes like the one that sent an Air France jet hurtling into a ravine in stormy weather, a report said Wednesday.

The Transportation Safety Board did not blame the pilot and his crew in its final report on what caused Flight 358 to skid off a runway at Toronto's Pearson International Airport on Aug. 2, 2005, during torrential rain.

Rather, the report targeted the "systemic" failures behind the crash, noting 10 more aircraft have crashed globally in similar circumstances since then. It made seven recommendations to both Transport Canada and the world's regulatory bodies on preventing future accidents.

A recommendation that pilots and their crews be better trained to land planes in treacherous weather was aimed at preventing crashes. And chief among the measures intended to minimize injuries after a crash was a recommendation to force Canadian airports to bring runway safety zones up to international standards.

"In the past 25 years, at least one aircraft a month overran a runway somewhere in the world - one aircraft a month," said board chairwoman Wendy Tadros. "As the trend continues, aircraft are bound to overrun Canadian runways."

With that sobering statistic in mind, the board "took a good, hard look at the terrain at the end of Canada's runways."

"To address this risk, (the board) asks that Transport Canada require 300-metre runway end safety areas or an alternate means of stopping aircraft," Tadros said. "This will bring all of Canada's major airports in line with international benchmarks."

Reading the report from Queen's University in Kingston, Ont., crash survivor Eddie Ho said he was almost overcome with emotion.

"As I was reading through it I had images going through my head - I almost started crying," Ho said. "But it was good to have this one source connecting all the dots and knowing, ah, that's what happened there."

Still, the fourth-year business student said he was frustrated the report shied away from explaining why the pilot and his crew decided to land.

"It was very neutral in that sense," he said of the report. "That just frustrates me."

The recommendation to extend the safety zone is strikingly similar to one made by a coroner's jury following the 1978 crash of an Air Canada DC-9, also at Pearson International Airport. Two people were killed and 47 seriously injured when that aircraft plunged off the end of the runway during takeoff and crashed into the same ravine.

All 309 passengers and crew of Air France Flight 358 miraculously survived the 2005 crash.

Still, Tadros said "no one should have to go through what they went through."

Tadros added she is optimistic the board's renewed call to lengthen runway safety zones will have an influence on Transport Canada.

In a release, Transport Minister Lawrence Cannon said "Transport Canada fully supports the intent of the recommendations."

"Officials are currently reviewing the contents of the report," Cannon said. "Our government's priority is to help ensure the safety and security of the transportation system."

Air France issued a release saying the airline hadn't yet analyzed the report in detail, but it did mention the safety zone in particular.

Having a 300-metre safety zone is "very important" to pilots, said Capt. Robert Perkins of the Air Line Pilots Association International, which represents 60,000 pilots across Canada and the United States.

"Hopefully it's one of these things, like fire trucks, that you're never going to require the need of," said Perkins, who is a pilot for Air Canada Jazz.

"However, if you're ever in the position of overrunning the runway, you are relying on what lies beyond the pavement to stop the airplane."

A myriad of dangers can lie beyond a runway, including highways, fuel depots, hydro lines and ravines, Perkins said.

"In most cases, statistics will show an airplane overrunning the runway will come to a stop within that (300-metre) area," he said.

The other recommendations made Wednesday include:

-Transport Canada should establish clear standards limiting approaches and landings in bad weather at Canadian airports.

-Mandatory training for all pilots involved in Canadian air transport operations to better enable them to make landing decisions in deteriorating weather.

-Requiring crews to establish a margin of error between available landing distance and required landing distance in bad weather.

-Requiring passenger safety briefings to include clear directions that passengers leave all carry-on baggage behind during an evacuation.

The board also detailed the weather conditions the Air France crew encountered when they attempted to land - information previously released during the investigation.

"The crew could observe it was raining hard toward the end of the runway, and the on-board radar confirmed that fact," said lead investigator Real Levasseur.

"There were many lightning strikes ahead. ... The aircraft entered the heavy rain shower and the forward visibility outside the cockpit became severely limited."

Levasseur said there was a delay in applying the reverse thrusters after landing as the crew struggled to get the plane aligned with the runway.

The crew did not calculate the landing distance required for an aircraft descending on a runway covered with water, and as a result didn't realize the margin of error they faced, he added.

Still, the board said its report was not about placing blame.

"In hindsight and given the outcome of this particular occurrence, the decisions made by the crew of Flight 358 may look questionable," said Nick Stoss, director of air investigations.

"At the TSB we believe accidents speak to a failure in the system. I can tell you this crew was not the first one to make the same decisions in much the same conditions."

© The Canadian Press, 2007