Air Safety Round Table: Jonathan Huggett
(Mr. Huggett participated by telephone)
Jonathan Huggett is a professional engineer registered in Ontario British Columbia and Alberta. His son Edward Huggett was killed in an air accident in British Columbia on the 21st of January 2006.
Investigations by the TSB, Coroner’s Service and as a result of recent out of court settlements, have all identified serious shortcomings in the air taxi service in British Columbia. Jonathan Huggett has undertaken significant investigative work of his own regarding the issues and has appeared numerous times on both local and national radio and TV to discuss the problems.
Click on Play Button to hear Audio (13:05)
Remarks
On Jan 21, 2006 in a much publicized air accident involving an air taxi, he was the 25 year old pilot of a Cessna 208, a ten-seater aircraft, on a commercial flight from Tofino, BC to Vancouver International Airport. There have been subsequent Transportation Safety Board (TSB) reports, Coroner’s reports, a lawsuit that has now been settled, and at no time was he found in any way responsible for the accident. In fact, he was declared somewhat of a hero in the press for the saving of some of the lives. Three people, including himself, regrettably lost their lives in this accident, an accident which I should tell you was wholly preventable from the outset. It continues to be a source of amazement that Transport Canada has not addressed any of the issues related to this. This goes to the heart of the issues that you’re hearing about on SMS (Safety Management Systems).
Let me start off, and I want to keep this very brief, as the other speakers have said I could go on for a great deal of time in detail, but I want to stay at the highest level to bring out the issues to you.
One of the problems that exists in the air taxi industry is the training of young pilots and the fostering and nurturing of young pilots. There is a culture in the air pilot community that training of young pilots is almost like a hazing or a rite of passage where young pilots are abused and if you survive the abuse then you have earned the right to become a fully-fledged pilot. That kind of culture is disgusting and reprehensible and is an issue that needs to be dealt with separately.
Let me tell you at the outset that the cause of the air crash was in fact the failure of a mechanical part, but this goes well beyond the failure of that mechanical part as you will find out shortly. To give you an idea the airline was an airline called SonicBlue who had been the subject of ongoing enforcement issues with Transport Canada. They had been fined, they had been disciplined, they were under a close watch. Only when the plane finally crashed the following morning did Transport Canada lift their operating license. They had known about this for many years.
There are well-publicized emails in which Transport Canada inspectors had contacted their managers to say they were afraid to fly on the flights for the purpose of inspecting them, which gives you some indication. What we determined at an early stage too was the role that the HRSDC (Human Resource Skills Development) had played in this part. For example, the pilots had not been paid, they’d been required to work for free for several years. In fact for over a year HRSDC had known about this and had done nothing to enforce the Canada Labour Code: which is another separate issue that you will no doubt want to deal with at some point, to find out whether this practice still goes on where HRSDC ignores the problems.
On the afternoon of the 21st of January, 2006 our son took off from Tofino and at about 9,000 feet a blade on a turbine came loose and destroyed the engine. He was engaged in what is known as SEIFR – single engine instrument flight rules, which is probably the most dangerous kind of flying one could ever be involved in. It is amazing to me that Transport Canada three years later continues to allow and encourage single engine IFR (Instrument Flight Rules) flights over the coastal areas of BC. It is arguable that the most dangerous area in the world to fly is the coastal areas of BC, basically because when engines fail there is no soft farmer’s field to land in as you might find on the Prairies. You are faced with either ditching in a rough ocean, hitting a mountainside or crashing into trees. There is no other option for you.
Several things became clear during the process of the investigation, I should tell you there was a Transportation Safety Board (TSB) report. Let me state as I go along some of the impacts of this. The TSB report, I want to be very clear – I was told by the Manager of the TSB in BC, Bill Yearwood, that he had been personally subjected to intense pressure by Transport Canada to tone down his report. And I want to be clear the extent to which Transport Canada engaged in very unfortunate activities. I am astounded that the various officials have not demanded the resignation of the senior management of Transport Canada. The evidence is overwhelming of their failure, not only the failure to undertake a reasonable due diligence and conduct their jobs properly, but in fact cross the line and engage in acts of intimidation and other acts that are very wrong and unfortunate.
TSB came out with a strong set of recommendations regarding this crash, none of which appear to have been acted on. It is difficult to go on at length regarding the issues but sufficient to say things like: when Single Engine IFR flights were allowed over coastal areas of BC in response to pressure from the industry because they are more economic to operate, the US, which had also previously lifted the ban had, when they allowed these flights to take place, had required certain equipment to be installed in the aircraft, such as Terrain Avoidance Systems and those kind of things. Transport Canada lifted the ban but also did not require any of the safety equipment to be used. Interestingly enough, three years later, they have still done nothing about it. When we have talked to Transport Canada they have said they are consulting with the industry and it all takes time.
Bill Yearwood, the manager of the TSB, reported, the accident happened in January 2006 ... by May 2006 Bill Yearwood had shown me a PowerPoint presentation that he gave to the senior management of Transport Canada outlining the problems and what needed to be done. So they knew, within four or five months. They of course waited for the final report although there was no reason to wait; they already knew what the issues were. So they basically did nothing whatever about this incident, and in fact have still not done anything. In fact, Bill Yearwood has told me he certainly wouldn’t fly in a single-engine aircraft on an SEIFR flight over coastal BC. I certainly wouldn’t and it’s amazing that the public are still allowed to do so.
Of course we haven’t had a recent accident. The only question in my mind is when the next one will be, not if the next one will be, and who will be killed this time.
Some of the issues related to single-engine IFR flight clearly are driven by economics. One of the most astounding things we discovered, is this premise that modern turbine engines don’t fail. That is the action that Transport Canada have basically based a lot of their information on. What we’ve now discovered is, and Bill Yearwood again with the TSB, not my opinion, has documented the fact that Transport Canada had no idea what the reliability ratings of the engines were. There were prescribed limits as to how many times an engine could fail (mean time between failure) and in fact when Bill Yearwood went through and analyzed the performance of the Pratt and Whitney single engine unit, we discovered that in fact this engine didn’t meet the requirements of the air safety regulations.
So, how does this relate to SMS? As you can begin to see, we had in the case of this particular accident, an actual illustration – not theory, but an actual illustration – of issues that Transport Canada knew and would do nothing about, an airline which had been under investigation for repeated violations of safety regulations, for violating the CLC, for various other acts, yet they would do nothing about it. In fact, they intimidated people.
It is very interesting that my son, because he could be a very outspoken person, had been elected by the other pilots as their representative on the company Safety Committee. Because he repeatedly raised these major air safety violations, he was in fact put on short time and put on the reserve roster, and his flying time was curtailed. Of course young pilots are always trying to accumulate hours so that they can move on. So there was a process of intimidation, in addition to which, my son, on a couple of occasions, approached Transport Canada inspectors when they visited the airline, and said there were these problems, and was repeatedly told by Transport Canada inspectors that he was too fussy and that he should turn a blind eye to some of these issues.
So the story is a very sad story. It has caused great tragedy, as you can imagine, for our family. He was due to get married, he was a young pilot of 25, his fiancé was obviously devastated. The human tragedy that results from this is incredible.
But I think what I find I should tell you, I am a professional engineer. I have spent my life, the last 38 years, in and around government in Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States. I don’t think I have ever seen a more inept, disgraceful, incompetent bunch of people than the senior management of Transport Canada in all of my life.
It is unbelievable to me that that group of people can be allowed to continue. It brings to mind the recent replacement of the senior management of the RCMP, where the House of Commons very clearly felt documented that that was an incompetent group of people. I would say that Transport Canada senior management is every bit as bad as the senior management of the RCMP were, and it is clearly one of the most important things that could happen – is the replacement of that management en masse, because they foster a culture of arrogance, of failing to do their job and really a most unfair and unhealthy atmosphere that is costing people their lives.
With that, I thank the committee for hearing this very brief presentation and would be happy to provide more documentation, but I don’t want to waste your time with a lot more detail.
Thank you.
(Applause)
