Air Safety Round Table: Kirsten Brazier
Kirsten Brazier is an Airline Transport rated pilot and has been operationally involved in aviation for 17 years, including 14 years as a professional pilot. She has held the position of Chief Pilot and Operations Manager for various companies, including an Air Taxi business in which she was a partner. She has also helped many companies bring their respective operations into compliance with Canadian Aviation Regulations (CARS) by assisting them with the various operating manuals, paperwork and training documents required by the CARS and audits to ensure compliance.
Remarks
(Video 12:48)
There are so many problems in the aviation industry that it is too monumental a project to provide a brief summary to many of you that are not familiar with the issues.
Really we weren’t intending to solve world peace here today - instead we were hoping to bring people together with similar interests, stimulate open discussion and answer questions. We had no intention of winning anybody over to one particular side or another -there is no right or wrong answer. We just have a bunch of problems that need to be addressed and we’d like to talk about those problems, and the various ways and means which we think they should be addressed.
With that, I’m here to talk about icebergs....
In more ways than one, the aviation industry is a lot like an iceberg – there is a whole lot more to it than the little white bit you see floating around the ocean surface.
Often, people make assumptions about the size, the composition, the integrity, the direction, and speed the iceberg is travelling, and what affect if any of those things might have on their personal safety.
Kind of like the assumptions many of you will make, and did make when you see this uniform. For most people, this uniform equates to the aviation industry. You very likely expect to see some variation of this uniform as you climb on board WestJet or Air Canada to travel from Vancouver to Montreal, Toronto to Ottawa; Canada to Australia or New Zealand for a holiday.
If you’re like most people, as you climb on board that nice shiny jet, which you likely incorrectly assume to be new, you might idly make further assumptions as you watch the cabin crew ready the aircraft for departure and wait for the remaining passengers to take their seats.
- You assume that the flight crew is properly licensed, fully trained, well rested, has all the required equipment to do their respective jobs and most importantly, has the safety of the entire aircraft first and foremost in their minds as they plan the flight;
- You assume the cabin crew is properly trained, rested, has all the required equipment to do their respective jobs, and most importantly will have your personal comfort first and foremost in their minds as they bring you your free coffee and little bag of bits and bytes;
- If you bother to lend it any thought, you might assume the people who maintain the aircraft are properly licensed, fully trained, well rested, have all the required equipment to do their respective jobs, and most importantly, did not throw out that really important bolt which was left over when they re-assembled the engine or the landing gear;
- As you taxi out towards the runway, you assume that the people in the control tower way off in the distance, are properly licensed, fully trained, well rested, have all the required equipment to do their respective jobs, and will safely coordinate all the aircraft coming and going from the airport so that none collide;
- As the aircraft accelerates down the runway, and you watch the overhead bins and cabin walls come alive in a loud, vibrating blur of activity, which you secretly hope won’t all fly apart into a million pieces, you assume that because nothing really traumatic happened the last six times you flew, you’ll probably make it. Besides, your friends and family fly all the time – they made it didn’t they? And if flying was really dangerous or unsafe, you’d hear about it in the media wouldn’t you?
- And finally, when you arrive at your destination and find yourself in the arms of your loved ones, or at the mercy of your boss, you assume that all the big shiny “new” jets will continue safely coming and going, until the next time you need to cross the country, the continent or the hemisphere.
- But most importantly, as you breathe a sigh of relief and watch the airport fade away in your rear view mirror, you’re satisfied with your journey because you arrived in one piece. Deep down you know you didn’t really risk your life, because at the end of the day, you know the federal government; that Transport Canada, watches over you. You know that if anything was amiss in the aviation industry, if there were any problems with the operators, the aircraft, the pilots, the flight attendants, the mechanics, the air traffic control system – or even with the regulatory agency itself – you’d hear about it in the news... wouldn’t you?
Well, maybe you did read a string of articles a year or so ago in the Toronto Star, about “near misses” in the air traffic system. Maybe you did read something about that jet that ran off an icy runway in Toronto, or Vancouver. Oh wait, and there was something on page 5 of the Globe and Mail about a small aircraft in some place called Nunavut – oh yeah, and then there was that big helicopter tragedy on the coast of Newfoundland....
But some guy in a suit from Transport Canada was recently quoted by the media as saying we have the safest industry in the world... surely the government wouldn’t lie to us would they?
Now I’d like to talk a little bit more about that iceberg – about how your perceptions of what you think you see in front of you, might be incorrect.
My name is Kirsten Brazier, and I am a professional pilot – not an airline pilot. I hold an Airline Transport License for airplanes, in both Canada and the US – for those of you who are unfamiliar with the structure of pilot licensing, an Airline Transport License is the highest level of license a pilot can achieve. With this license, I am qualified to fly any civilian aircraft operating in this country – as a Captain. Of course I might need an hour or two of familiarization training before I climb into a Boeing 737 and fly you to Vancouver.
I also hold a commercial helicopter license, which allows me to fly a helicopter in a commercial air service.
I have been in aviation operations for the past 17 years, and flying as a professional pilot for 14 of those years. I have flown all over Canada, in all manner of aircraft – but mostly what you would call “bush planes” – operating on wheels, floats and skis. I have flown what is called IFR – which is flying with reference to Instruments when the weather is bad, and VFR, which is flying with reference to the ground, and what you can see out the window – sometimes the weather is bad in that kind of flying too, but the rules for getting from A to B are different. And I have flown briefly overseas.
The type of flying that interests me, and has kept me engaged in the industry, is, and contrary to your perception, the largest sector of aviation in Canada. These are the Air Taxis, the Aerial Work and the Commuter sectors of aviation. These are all the “little” airplanes that provide the feeders for all the “big” planes. These are all the specialty air services, such as those that transport tourists to fishing lodges, injured people to hospitals, workers to various service jobs in industry – hydro, telephone, district court services, bring food and freight to remote northern communities, and even transport many of your MPs to their constituents up north. Dennis Bevington is an example of this type of MP – we met in Inuvik.
This industry also includes helicopters, which transport all manner of weird and wonderful people and bits of equipment to places where no aircraft can land – sometimes, not even the helicopter.
What many of you may not realize, living in large urban centres, is that this is only a small sampling, of what is the true aviation industry in Canada.
And I must further destroy your perceptions – The industry is not as safe as you think.
In truth, and the reason we are here today, is that this very day, big shiny jets are travelling from one end of the country, under something called Safety Management Systems (SMS). Surely a transportation system with the word “safety” incorporated into it, must be a good thing?
Years ago, Transport Canada realized the industry was growing in leaps and bounds, at a far greater rate than their budget could accommodate oversight for. Something had to be done, to regain control over standards in the industry. Upper management started planning ways to download responsibility onto industry, to reduce the liability of their office, and unfortunately, Transport Canada’s accountability for their actions.
Then, enter ICAO - International Civil Aviation Organization – which is an International Organization of States, cooperating together under something called the Chicago convention. Originally signed in 1944 by 52 member states, it has now grown to 190 member states.
ICAO’s stated mandate is that it “works to achieve its vision of safe, secure and sustainable development of civil aviation through cooperation amongst its member States.”
ICAO members came up with the idea of Safety Management Systems - a system of risk and hazard analysis which aims to change the very safety culture of a company from the top down. It is a system which aims to groom each member state, and in turn each aviation company within that state, to a system of self-repair. This is where, through a system of checks and balances, a member state or company, identifies weaknesses within, and aims to correct them before any problems, or accidents result.
Transport Canada was delighted! Finally, a way to overcome the financial and liability burden of regulation and oversight of an industry too big for its britches.
The minute Transport Canada got wind of this way out of their problems, they immediately began to implement stages of the system – in advance of careful thought and foresight; in advance of full consultation of industry at all levels (despite what they may tell you – but then, they don’t lie); in advance of putting in place any fail safe protection system - checks and balances - in place to monitor the successes and failures of this new fangled concept.
And, in advance of proper legislative due process, they ruthlessly began chopping oversight and audits from their mandate, and preparing for an industry to essentially regulate themselves.
Were you aware, that this very day, while Safety Management Systems is still in the developmental phase that Transport Canada has ceased the National Audit Program?
Were you aware, that with respect to West Jet, and Air Canada, and other major carriers - the aviation that you are familiar with - that Transport Canada is no longer inspecting airline activities? That the airlines are inspecting themselves? That similar to the self management of the railway industry - that resulted in national disaster and a radical increase in the accident rate - the very people with control over profit margins and bottom lines, are now responsible for your safety?
Were you aware that those bean counters, who will weigh the value of your life, against the value of Revenue per Available Seat Mile, have nobody looking over their shoulders to make sure you still remain valuable to someone other than your loved ones?
Were you aware, that although Safety Management is not actually implemented by the majority of the aviation industry in Canada, and in fact is not defined or even legislated by the Canadian Aviation Regulations (CARS) or the Aeronautics Act for anything other than major airlines, that Transport Canada isn’t inspecting or auditing this segment of the aviation industry either?
Instead, Transport Canada has deflected concerns from all areas of industry, and long ago began propagandizing the public, and industry to feel warm and fuzzy about the existing safety record of our country.
The trouble is, because we have no other tangible way to measure safety, we use body counts and industry incident reports as a measuring stick for safety. This is not a true measure of safety, and is misleading.
So this is the system that appears before you today and which many of us have been fighting for the past few years. A lot of us fought valiantly against Bill C-6, which turned into Bill C-7 and later died. Many people at this table contributed to those efforts.
Unfortunately we didn’t win any battles: we are still left with no oversight, and the government is still telling us lies. We are here in Ottawa today because Transport Canada fully intends to go ahead with the legislation despite these concerns.
Again, this is what we are here to talk about. To get this topic aired for discussion, and to hear your point of views. If Transport Canada does show up in a couple of months with this legislation for first reading in the Gazette, we’ll be ready. We’ll bring the full force of the international community down upon their heads if we have to – to make them stop.
We’re not here to prevent SMS, nobody here has the intention of doing that – we just ask that instead of becoming a pioneer in a system that is untried anywhere else in the world, and rushing into it, that we carefully consider the damage that can be done. And that we don’t allow the people responsible for profit run our industry.
Above all else: we need some accountability in Transport Canada - who measures our companies, our pilots, our engineers, and every other aspect of the industry against the Canadian Aviation Regulations – because nobody is watching over them.
Thank you for listening.
