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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

TSB Releases Update on Fatal Saturna Island Crash

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Six people who died in B.C. float plane crash couldn't escape stuck doors
Published Thursday January 28th, 2010

By Terri Theodore
The Canadian Press


VANCOUVER, B.C. - If the float plane that crashed and sank off Saturna Island, B.C., had been equipped with doors that ejected, some of the six people killed may have survived.

The recommendation has been made by the Transportation Safety Board at least twice in the past, but no changes have been made.   Read more...

SafeSkies Newsletter Vol. 1, No. 10

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SAFESKIES NEWSLETTER
Volume 1, No. 10

http://safeskies.ca

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December 22, 2009

In this Issue

  • Latest News from SafeSkies
  • Industry News
  • Whistleblower Project: Alphabet Aircraft
  • Transport Canada Safety Management Information Session
Read more...

Response to Walrus Article Criticizes the TSB

Safer Trip

In “Fly At Your Own Risk” (November), Carol Shaben alerts us to Transport Canada’s dilatory response to questions surrounding the inadequacy of its safety oversight program: an apparently irrelevant $690,000 consultants’ study. Indeed, this is precisely the type of bureaucratic game I discussed some eighteen years ago in connection with the disintegration of the Transportation Safety Board’s sad predecessor, the Canadian Aviation Safety Board, in my book Improbable Cause.   Read more...

Pilot Convictions of Criminal Negligence Overturned

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By: Kevin Rollason
Winnipeg Free Press
18/12/2009 1:00 AM

The family of an elderly man who died from injuries suffered in a plane crash is upset that the pilot's convictions for killing him and injuring four others have been overturned by the province's highest court.

In a unanimous decision released on Thursday, the Manitoba Court of Appeal ruled pilot Mark Tayfel should not have been convicted of criminal negligence causing death and four counts of criminal negligence causing bodily harm after his 2007 trial.   Read more...

Buffalo Joe says TC's Version of SMS is Hurting Business

Elizabeth McMillan
Northern News Services
Published Wednesday, December 16, 2009
 
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - One Northern aviator says the way Transport Canada monitors aviation safety practices at his company is crippling business and focuses on paperwork instead of safety.   Read more...

SMS Oversight Cited in 2008 Fatal Accident

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Plane that crashed, killing 5, was overloaded: TSB
 
The Canadian Press

Date: Wednesday Dec. 9, 2009 8:57 PM ET

EDMONTON — A company plane that crashed last year in Alberta, killing five people, was overloaded and not properly maintained, says a report by the Transportation Safety Board.

The aircraft, owned by A.D. Williams Engineering, crashed on March 28, 2008, near Wainwright.

Company president Reagan Williams, who piloted the single-engine Piper Malibu, his two senior employees and two contractors all died.   Read more...

NDP Transport Critic Calls for Review of Canada's Aviation Safety Regime

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NDP Transport Critic Dennis Bevington

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
DECEMBER 2, 2009
 
NEW DEMOCRAT TRANSPORT CRITIC CALLS FOR REVIEW OF CANADA’S AVIATION SAFETY REGIME

Watch Dennis Bevington on CTV's Power Play
 
OTTAWA – Transport Canada needs to review its entire Aviation Safety program following revelations by safety inspectors and mechanics testifying before the House of Commons Transport Committee, said New Democrat Transport Critic Dennis Bevington (Western Arctic).   Read more...

Air Safety Regulation on "The Current" (CBC Radio)

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Justice Virgil Moshansky

There has been some disturbing testimony this week at the House of Commons Transport Committee. It has centred around the safety of Canada's passenger airplanes. There have been stories of illegal refueling ... masking tape holding electrical cords in place and a shortage of airplane inspectors.

 Click on the play button to hear audio (approx. 24min.)   Read more...

SafeSkies Newsletter Vol. 1, No. 9

Topics:

SAFESKIES NEWSLETTER
Volume 1, No. 9

http://safeskies.ca

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December 1, 2009

In this Issue

  • Latest News from SafeSkies
  • Industry News 
Read more...

Question Period: After SCOTIC

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Dennis Bevington during Question Period

Following the meeting of the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities on November 30th (see http://safeskies.ca/news/SCOTIC_to_hear_witnesses for Notice of Meeting and http://safeskies.ca/news/Pushing_paper for news and a link to the audio), NDP Transport Critic Dennis Bevington once again raised the issue of air safety during Question Period in the House of Commons on December 1st.  Watch the exchange between Mr. Bevington and John Baird, Minister of Transport.   Read more...