By Skies Magazine | October 24, 2013 Estimated reading time 3 minutes, 51 seconds.
The Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) is calling on Transport Canada to mandate underwater egress training for all flight crews engaged in commercial floatplane operations, and to require passenger shoulder harnesses in all floatplanes certificated for nine or fewer passengers.
The TSB’s recommendations accompany the release of its report on the May 25, 2012 crash of a de Havilland Beaver floatplane operated by Cochrane Air Service. According to the TSB, the plane was attempting a landing on Lillabelle Lake in northern Ontario when gusty conditions prevented it from settling on the water, leading the pilot to initiate a go-around.
As the pilot applied full power and began to climb, however, the airspeed dropped suddenly, resulting in a yaw, a left roll, and a probable aerodynamic stall. The aircraft flipped over, struck the water, and was partially submerged. Although all three people on board survived the initial impact, only one passenger escaped; the pilot and other passenger drowned.
According to TSB investigator Ewan Tasker, the Cochrane Air Service crash fits a larger pattern of floatplane fatalities. “The statistics we have point to a single, sobering fact: roughly 70 percent of the fatalities involving aircraft that crash and are submerged in water are from drowning,” he said. “Not from the crash. Not from the impact. But because people are unable to get out. Or if they do, because they’re too exhausted or injured to stay afloat.”
In 2011, following its investigation into a 2009 floatplane crash in Lyall Harbour, B.C., that killed six people, the TSB made two recommendations: one calling for pop-out windows and doors on seaplanes to better facilitate egress, and another calling for personal flotation devices for all seaplane passengers. Although Transport Canada has committed to making flotation devices mandatory, it has not committed to requiring floatplane doors and windows to come off easily after a crash.
Now, the TSB is making two additional recommendations: for underwater egress training for floatplane crewmembers, and for seatbelts with shoulder harnesses for all passengers.
“Underwater egress training can make a real difference, and pilots who have this training stand a better chance of getting out of a submerged plane — and a better chance of helping their passengers get out,” said TSB chair Wendy Tadros. Shoulder harnesses, meanwhile, have been proven to reduce the risk of head trauma that can knock passengers unconscious and render them unable to escape. While commercial pilots and passengers who fly in new floatplanes have shoulder harnesses, passengers who fly in older planes do not.
“That kind of loophole — the kind that says older planes don’t have to offer the same level of protection — is a loophole that can kill people,” Tadros said. “Transport Canada needs to close that loophole.”
The Minister of Transport now has 90 days to formally respond to the TSB’s recommendations, and explain how they have addressed or will address the safety deficiencies.
To read the report on the TSB website, click here.
