Joe, in his post, The runways are long enough, poses two questions.

“Do you REALLY think that any airline would jeopardize their customers and employee safety by operating outside of acceptable + calculated limits?”

“Do you think the pilots might have something to say about putting their own lives in danger?”

He might wish to research the Dryden crash a generation ago.  It appears a generation is enough time to forget a little history.  Consider the following March 27, 1992 Financial Post item that seems to answer the two questions.  The final paragraph has been removed for legal considerations.

He may also wish to read the full Moshansky Report.  It’s available at the Toronto Public Library’s Main Branch on Yonge north of Bloor.

Finally, this link is for newspaper articles that report on air safety. 

http://fairwhistleblower.ca/issues/air_safety_articles.html

 Here is the newspaper item.

 The bottom-line preoccupations of Air Ontario Inc., parent Air Canada and a lax, ill-equipped federal bureaucracy added to circumstances leading to the 1989 plane crash at Dryden, Ont., that killed 24 people, said a highly critical judicial inquiry.

The four-volume final report of the $10.5-million federal inquiry into the Air Ontario crash made 191 recommendations, chief among them measures to ensure de-icing to prevent the "insidious and generally unrecognized effects" of fuel tanks containing sub-zero fuel precipitating ice on wings under certain circumstances.

The inquiry's report blasted Air Ontario and Air Canada, saying they allowed "other corporate concerns to intervene and subordinate safety."

It added: "The difference between the attention and resources expended by Air Canada and Air Ontario on marketing, as compared with safety of operations, must . . . be described as inadequate and short-sighted."

Commissioner Virgil Moshansky told reporters: "This accident did not just happen by chance - it was allowed to happen . . . The flight crew, the airline and the regulators all played a role in the ultimate fate of Flight 1363."

SWEEPING CRITICISMS

The inquiry's report levelled sweeping criticism at federal regulators, saying Ottawa's 1984 deficit-cutting exercise at a time when it deregulated the aviation industry left the bureaucracy unable to ensure safety in the skies.

"Bureaucratic intransigence" prompted the failure of top officials to realize deregulation would demand more, not less, enforcement and legislation, Moshansky said.

The report also said Transport Canada should not have allowed Air Ontario to fly its newly acquired Fokker F-28 jet until crews had been adequately trained.

Furthermore, failure of Transport Canada and the Canadian Aviation Safety Board to investigate Air Ontario's previous incidents of ice-contaminated wings "abetted the carrier's permissive corporate attitude with regard to regulatory compliance."

Federal Transport Minister Jean Corbeil said the government has implemented many interim recommendations and mounted a thorough and urgent examination of each of the inquiry's final recommendations.

Air Ontario spokesman Peter Hill said a comprehensive safety program has been implemented at the

airline and the Fokker jet aircraft have been retired.

SNOW ON THE WINGS

The inquiry concluded the immediate cause of the crash on March 10, 1989, was snow on the wings of the Fokker. The plane took off from Dryden, located 150 kilometres east of the Manitoba-Ontario border, in a storm but couldn't reach safe air speed due to snow and ice on the upper side of its wings.

Moments later, the aircraft ripped through trees, crashed and erupted in flames.

The report said Air Ontario's dispatch office cleared the flight into Dryden and the captain accepted the clearance despite a forecast of freezing rain, an inoperative auxiliary power unit, the absence of ground starting equipment for the jet at Dryden and Air Ontario's policy prohibiting de-icing with an engine running.

The captain apparently believed the ice and snow would blow off the wings during takeoff.

Bob Kotyk