Jazz lands YAM with plows on runway

[TheStig]

Finally had a chance to listen to the ATC recording. What an interesting scenario, amazing how latently a near disaster occurred. From a broad perspective; there look like three main elements, weather, an uncontrolled airport and a failed radio.

FWIW, I know the CA, and he's truly top shelf. Certainly is not an "Idiot" ..

I think it's way too easy and not constructive to say, "this would never happen to me because I always do this.." or "these guys are idiots." I have no doubt they are excellent pilots and this could have happened many pilots (but not all the experts found here;)

1) The weather - Not much we can do about that.

2) Uncontrolled Airport

Maybe all air carriers need to stop operating into airports without at the very least a FSS on duty! If they stop, it will force the hand of the airport to have proper staffing especially if snow clearing is in effect.

Couldn't agree more. Our passengers pay far too much money into our Nav and Airports for what is being returned in services. Had two way communications been expected the pilots would have been made aware of their failed VHF2. Passengers deserve better, pilots deserve better.

3) I'm not sure what Jazz's SOP's or FOM state or what guidance is offered for VHF communications at uncontrolled airports. With a proper SMS system and threat mitigation system in place they should now identify this as a weakness and potential hazard to be addressed. Procedures should be modified accordingly and hopefully we can all learn a valuable lesson without anything being written in blood.

[URC]

I fly scheduled ops to many airports in Canada, I've never flown to YAM. In my experience at other airports when the Tower closes communications are taken over by the local or a remote FSS. has this always been the case at YAM, that when the Tower closes you are on your own ? Are there any other airports in Canada, with scheduled airline service, where this is also the case ?

Airlines schedule a lot of early morning head start flights, and later night arrivals to end the day and terminate for the overnight. Sometimes it can be one of the busiest times of the day at these smaller airports, yet f'ing Nav Canada can't be bothered to keep their Towers open during these times. The real idiots here are the brain trust at Nav Canada and Transport Canada that allow this nonsense to happen in the first place.

[sstaurus]

Canoehead has it right. Might even be SOP at most shops already, a simple memo to remind people about that fact would suffice.

[Mayor_McCheese]

I fly scheduled ops to many airports in Canada, I've never flown to YAM. In my experience at other airports when the Tower closes communications are taken over by the local or a remote FSS. has this always been the case at YAM, that when the Tower closes you are on your own ? Are there any other airports in Canada, with scheduled airline service, where this is also the case ?

I can't answer your question about other airports, but no, this was not always the case at YAM. Until a few years ago (not sure how many, I want to say 5ish) there was on site FSS when the tower was closed. But the tower hours were also less at the time, I believe it was 8am-8pm for tower then FSS overnight. Now tower operates 6:30am-10:30pm local time.