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The SafeSkies website focuses on aviation safety issues that affect Canadians, whether flying as passengers or crew, for pleasure or for work, on wide-body jets or single-engine floatplanes.

It was first created to showcase a landmark event: the Aviation Safety Round Table which convened in 2009 on Parliament Hill. The full proceedings of this event are available on this website, including video/audio and transcripts of all of the presentations.

The shocking revelations that emerged at this event galvanized efforts to scrutinize Transport Canada's performance, and to force the department to step up to its regulatory responsibilities.

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Latest News

More Heartbreak for FAA Whistleblowers

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Barbara F. Hollingsworth – June 14th, 2011

Members of the FAA Whistleblowers Alliance were expecting more from Clayton Foushee Jr., head of the Federal Aviation Administration's Office of Audit and Evaluation. Hoping that Foushee was finally willing to do something about the relentless retaliation reported by former FAA employees forced out for doing their jobs, they were once again disappointed.

"Older cases would have lesser priority," FWA Executive Director Gabe Bruno, who attended the meeting last week at the downtown offices of the Government Accountability Project, told The Washington Examiner. The former FAA manager was forced to retire after uncovering a fraudulent airline mechanic certification scheme in which 33 "mechanics" shared the same address in Saudi Arabia.   Read more...

Assert Yourself: NTSB Recommends Assertiveness Training For First Officers

Linda Werfelman – May, 2011

Crew resource management (CRM) training should be expanded to include assertiveness training for first officers, the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) says, citing a 2009 crash in which the first officer did not press the captain on his decision to continue an approach even as they struggled with problems associated with asymmetric flaps.

The NTSB’s safety recommendation to the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) called on the FAA to “require that role-playing or simulator-based exercises that teach first of- ficers to assertively voice their concerns and that teach captains to develop a leadership style that supports first officer assertiveness be included as part of the already-required crew resource management training” for pilots in U.S. Federal Aviation Regulations (FARs) Part 121, 135 and 91 Subpart K operations.   Read more...

Air France Crash Probe Raises Pilot Training Questions

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Jason Paur – June 7th, 2011

Air France Flight 447 stalled high over the Atlantic Ocean and plunged into the sea even as the pilots repeatedly tried to pull the nose up — a reaction opposite to what was needed to recover from the stall. The preliminary findings from French authorities has industry insiders questioning the pilot training needed to handle extreme confusion and the growing role of automation in the cockpit.   Read more...

Float-Plane Passengers to Wear Life Vests

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Larry Pynn – May 31st, 2011

Commercial float-plane operators of all sizes say they are now committed to implementing a federal transportation safety-board recommendation that passengers wear life vests during flights.

“The intention from all the operators is to absolutely have the passengers wear them,” Lyle Soetaert, spokesman for the fledgling Floatplane Operators Association, said in an interview on Monday.

   Read more...

Survivor of Seair Seaplanes Crash Off Saturna Island Sues for Damages

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Larry Pynn – May 19th, 2011

The only passenger to survive a commercial de Havilland Beaver float plane crash in 2009 off Saturna Island has filed a lawsuit in B.C. Supreme Court.

Barbara Glenn, 58, of White Rock, escaped with serious injuries after the single-engine plane crashed Nov. 29, 2009 during an attempted takeoff in Lyall Harbour, killing the six other passengers, including her husband, Thomas Glenn, 60.   Read more...

Canadian Runway Safety Proposal Falls Short of Top Aviation Standard

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Ian Macleod – May 13th, 2011

Six years after an Air France airliner barrelled off a rain-slick Toronto runway and caught fire, Transport Canada is close to toughening runway safety with longer overrun zones.

The proposed move follows a warning last year from the Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) that runway "excursions" and other landing safety issues pose one of the country's greatest transportation risks and need urgent government and industry action.   Read more...

Transport Canada Makes Out-of-Court Deal in Pilot's Death

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Julian Sher – May 9th, 2011

Within 10 minutes of takeoff on a warm September evening in 2005, Robert Honour was fighting to steady his helicopter as it plummeted from the sky, a long trail of grey-black smoke spewing behind it.

Battling with his disabled machine, Mr. Honour appeared to aim for a hayfield to avoid landing on people below in a house and barn near Duncan, B.C. But despite the 51-year-old pilot’s best efforts, the helicopter crashed in “an explosion and fireball,” killing him and his 29-year-old passenger, Les Chadwick.Last week, the B.C. Supreme Court was to examine whether a federal regulatory agency should be held responsible for the deaths. In a civil suit brought by Mr. Honour’s widow and his three children, Transport Canada was accused of breaking its own rules by licensing a helicopter service company “with an extensive history of unsafe practises.”   Read more...

Canada Flies On Top Air Safety Record

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Paula Newman – April 28th, 2011

It's a witty irony that Kurtis Arnold's claim rings true for him on most days; the most stressful part of his job as an air traffic controller is his commute in by car.

As the scrutiny over air control safety continues, Arnold admits it can be a stressful job but that Nav Canada, his employer and Canada's only air traffic control provider, has put the training and tools in place to manage that stress both on duty and off.   Read more...

Nav Canada Confident Policy can Keep Controllers Awake

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Larry Pynn – April 21st, 2011

VANCOUVER — The agency responsible for air-traffic control in Canada says it has a policy in place to help prevent air traffic controllers from falling asleep on the job and leaving pilots to land unassisted, as has happened repeatedly in the U.S.

Ron Singer, spokesman for Nav Canada, said it's been "practice to have two controllers working on overnight shifts" since 1999 to protect against solo workers nodding off and posing an aviation hazard.   Read more...

TSB Criticizes Transport Canada on Slow Implementation of Safety Recommendation

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Aviation Safety Network – April 11, 2011

A TSB investiation into a cabin smoke and passenger evacuation incident revealed that Transport Canada had not yet implemented an actual regulatory change after accepting a safety recommendation dated December 2007. The recommendation called for passenger safety briefings to include clear direction to leave all carry-on baggage behind during an evacuation.   Read more...