No One in the Tower, Yet Porter continues to Land in Breach of Curfew: TPA Board Discussion on Matter Redacted

CommunityAIR has learned that Porter aircraft regularly land and take off at the laceType w:st="on">IslandlaceType> laceType w:st="on">AirportlaceType> when no air traffic controller is present.

The airport is subject to a strict 11 p.m. curfew, for the protection of residents living nearby. Air traffic controllers go off duty at that time, CommunityAIR has been advised.

Porter breaches curfew regularly. Here are two recent examples:

·        Porter flight 130 from Newark arrived at 11:19 p.m. on August 18th, 2009 – see screenshot below

·        The TPA confirmed “a breach on curfew violation on August 30, 2009 at 2307 hours.  We have reviewed our data and have verified that a Q400 aircraft had departed at 1105 hours. “ See e-mail attached..

“Continuing curfew breaches by Porter are a serious problem that the Toronto Port Authority seems to have no ability – or will – to control. To land or take off without air traffic control seems to us to be a safety issue that needs to be addressed.” said Brian Iler, Chair, CommunityAIR.

“Worse, it has come to our attention that minutes of a TPA board meeting at which this issue was raised have been redacted to exclude reference to the discussion.” said Iler.