Mr. Ball points out that, “Questioning if the way things are done are as safe as they can be is essential to ensuring a safe aviation industry,” but that “relying on CADORS can be a bit misleading when looking at the safety of an aerodrome.”

While the reports on CADORS may not specify a direct cause and effect relationship as to how safe an aerodrome is, the frequency at which certain events occur can indicate a greater than average risk at a particular location.

Bird strikes are a case in point. On the face of it, the 76 reported incidents at the island airport since CADORS online records, which date back to 1993, seem to pale against the 555 reported at Pearson (7.3 times as many strikes) in the same time period.

However, the island airport doesn’t compare quite as favourably when one looks at the frequency of traffic at each airport. While statistics giving the total number of aircraft movements at the two locations are not readily available, a six-hour sample of arrivals and departures at each location today is interesting. For a six-hour period from 06:56 to 13:00, The island airport saw 29 aircraft movements. Pearson saw 395 or 13.6 times as much traffic.

An historical perspective is also useful. The island airport numbers dropped significantly after 1987 when City Express ceased operations until recently when Porter Airlines started up. Pearson has continued to grow throughout the CADORS recording period.

To reiterate, while CADORS may not predict that a fatal crash will occur at the island airport due to a bird strike, the number of recorded strikes, considering the frequency of traffic at the airport, indicates that the safety of the aerodrome should be a concern given that aviation safety experts agree that bird strikes present a clear danger.

As for missed approaches being designed for safety, on the contrary, a missed approach is carried out because of an unsafe condition in the first place. By Mr. Ball’s logic, many missed approaches executed at an airport would prove that the airport is safer than one that would have few.

Mr. Ball is correct when he says that there are many reasons for missed approaches but he is short on detail when he says that the vast majority has nothing to do with the airport itself. Of the 58 missed approaches at the island airport, no reason was given for 10 of them. Of the remaining 48, 28 or 58 % were weather related, pilot error in approaching the 4,000 ft runway in a Q400, bird strike or a marine vessel on the approach. This is a majority of instances directly related to the airport location, hence the airport itself.

Consider this CADORS entry for Overshoot/Missed Approach events at the island airport. “Porter Airlines flight POE250 a Dash 8 - 400 on an IFR flight from Ottawa (CYOW) to Toronto City Centre (CYTZ) flew a missed approach due to weather at CYTZ. No impact to Operations.”

Bob Kotyk