This safty advocate (me) will be attending, and hopes that as many ops out there as possible will be sending someone. I spoke at length with Dave Nowzek last week and have a positive feeling about it ... even if SMS is a recurring themeTransport Canada bans media from float plane safety workshop
By Larry Pynn, Vancouver Sun August 29, 2010
VANCOUVER - Transport Canada’s decision to ban the media from attending a float plane safety workshop has been criticized sharply from within the industry.
“I feel the press should attend,” insisted Joel Eilertsen, the owner of Air Cab, based in Coal Harbour near Port Hardy. “There’s nothing to be concerned about, nothing to hide.
“It creates a suspicious attitude. I think [the news media] should be able to attend. You should be there to hear the comments from everybody.”
Transport Canada is inviting 55 float plane operators from around B.C. to attend a two-day workshop to discuss ways to make the industry safer.
Ottawa says the Oct. 6-7 workshop in Vancouver will address issues such as “safety record and trends, safety culture, customers’ expectations, protection of passengers, and egress techniques.”
The workshop follows the deaths of 22 people in four commercial float plane accidents over the past two years on the B.C. coast, including six who died in a Seair Seaplanes crash off Saturna Island on Nov. 29.
Martin Eley, director-general of civil aviation in Ottawa, confirmed the decision to “limit the workshop to representatives of the regulator, industry, and safety advocates to facilitate productive regulatory and technical discussions.”
It was Eley who shelved improvements in float plane safety in a letter to a superior in May 2008, saying: “In a subsequent discussion you and I agreed that in the absence of a clear way forward, this file would be put on hold in deference to other civil aviation priorities. Any further work on this file would need to be evaluated in the context of our current organization and our current priorities.”
Among the more contentious issues expected to be debated is whether Transport Canada should mandate a federal transportation safety board recommendation that life vests be worn on float-plane flights.
Five men escaped an MJM Air crash off Quadra Island in 2005, only to drown because they weren’t wearing life jackets and didn’t grab them from the plane before swimming free.
Among other float-plane safety developments, Saltspring Air on Aug. 18 installed the first emergency pop-out windows on a de Havilland DHC-2 Beaver seaplane, making it easier for passengers to escape in the event of a crash in water.
In July, The Vancouver Sun reported that B.C.’s major float plane companies were not complying with a Transport Canada request that new float-plane safety brochures provided by Ottawa be distributed to all passengers.
On Friday, The Sun flew aboard a Seair float plane between Richmond and Nanaimo.
Seair did have the Transport Canada pamphlets on a side counter, but not at the check-in counter, where they’d be more obvious. No one distributed them to passengers or even mentioned they existed, which fell short of Transport Canada’s request to industry.
Inside the Seair office in Nanaimo, the Transport Canada pamphlets were positioned front and centre, at the check-in counter.
On the return flight with Harbour Air, there were no pamphlets at all at the check-in counter or waiting area in Nanaimo. An employee said they were out and expecting more. The pamphlets were on the front counter of the airline’s Richmond office.
BTW, you may notice there is no comment from me in the above story ... I was asked for one, but frankly, have mixed feelings about the "banning of the press"!