Ottawa clearing way for Canadian airlines to use fewer flight attendants

The federal government wants to let Canada’s airlines fly with fewer flight attendants, a move that one union says is a threat to passenger safety.

Transport Canada this week granted WestJet an exemption to the existing rules, allowing the airline to operate with one flight attendant for every 50 passengers, instead of one cabin staff for every 40 passengers.

Runway incursions a threat to aviation safety

OTTAWA—The radar screen Toronto’s Pearson airport told the heart-stopping tale of a looming disaster.

A radar scope in the control tower showed two targets — one of them an Air Canada Embraer jet about to land — on a collision course.

The controller, perched high above the runways and taxiways, could see the landing lights of the approaching jet. But the identity of the other target was hidden in the late-evening darkness.

Danger Overhead Part 2: Are big jets as safe as we think?

It took three years for retired judge Virgil Moshansky to uncover the full story of what caused a horrific Air Ontario crash in the northern town of Dryden on March 10, 1989.

A passenger jet operated by one of Air Canada’s regional feeder airlines had crashed shortly after takeoff on a snowy runway, killing 24 of 69 people aboard. When he submitted 1,712 pages of findings to the federal government, Moshansky revealed an aviation safety system that was broken, its problems extending well beyond any one airline.

Danger overhead: Transport Canada cuts are a red flag for small commercial aviation safety

OTTAWA — Thirty-nine seconds after takeoff, the co-pilot of a Beechcraft King Air reported a problem with the right engine to the control tower at the Quebec City airport and said the aircraft was returning to land.

“We’re unable to climb,” he reported on the early morning flight to Sept-Iles on the north shore of the St. Lawrence before the last communication on June 23, 2010.

Airline safety: Watchdog warns that Canadians are at ‘unnecessary risk’ of runway overruns

Canada’s transportation safety watchdog is sounding the alarm about runway overruns, worried that foot-dragging by Ottawa on implementing tougher safety regulations and an unwillingness by airports to install safety measures are endangering the public.

The rate of runway overruns in Canada is twice the world average — and four times the world average when runways are wet.

An overrun occurs when a landing aircraft exceeds the available runway, running off the end.

Harper’s air-safety lapses scarier than F-35 cock-up

The most dramatic revelation from Canada’s auditor general is the story of the F-35 cock-up. No question.

But the most worrying — and telling — portion of Tuesday’s report by Michael Ferguson is his description of the Conservative government’s chillingly casual approach to air safety.

Casual because this government has no use for regulation and is going out of its way to cut what it calls red tape.

Chilling because when governments don’t bother to regulate air safety, planes crash.

Ferguson is quick to point out that we haven’t hit the disaster point yet. In fact, the number of air accidents overall has fallen in the past two years, thanks largely to a reduction in incidents involving small carriers.

But he also notes that:

 • In contravention of its own rules, the government failed to inspect two-thirds of so-called high-risk aviation companies last year;

 • Most of the inspections it did make were flawed;