Globe and Mail article March 4, 2008
Alleged Porter problem with planes dismissed
A report of trouble with landing gear on two Porter Airlines planes was dismissed yesterday by the company and the agency that operates air-traffic control at the island airport.
A Transport Canada document citing reports of "smoke" coming from landing gear on Porter planes was distributed by a group that opposes the Toronto Centre City Airport. But Porter and Transport Canada said the smoke was actually vapour from excess glycol used to de-ice the Bombardier Q400 aircraft's wings.
Robert Deluce, Porter's president and chief executive officer, said the mist has nothing to do with landing-gear problems that prompted Scandinavian Airlines Systems to ground its fleet of similar, but older, planes.
It seems highly unlikely that there would be that much excess glycol that it would form a "mist". The planes one from Montreal and one from Ottawa both had "smoke" reported coming from their landing gear in the CADORS report.
Each plane had been de-iced an hour before and had taken off. During the take off phase excess glycol is blown off the plane by the force of the wind stream.
Something seems to be missing in Porters explanation
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I agree - I said something similar to Jeff Gray - the Globe reporter who ran with the story:
"Thinking a bit about that explanation - it seems a bit odd – de-icing has happened a lot this winter, and one would therefore expect to see such a report frequently, or not at all. If it’s that common, why would anyone bother to report it – and twice in the space of several minutes?
And these are planes landing – one would expect that all deicing fluid would have been blown off on take-off, or dripped off during the hour-long flight.
Again, odd."
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