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On June 8, 2019, Transport Canada cancelled Wabusk Air’s Air Operator Certificate, which prohibits the company from providing commercial air services.
Transport Canada took this serious safety action because of Wabusk Air’s demonstrated inability to safely operate in accordance with the Canadian Aviation Regulations.
Prior to this action taken by Transport Canada, the department has used various measures such as certificate action and enhanced monitoring to ensure Wabusk Air operated its commercial air service safely.
Transport Canada takes its aviation safety oversight role seriously and expects every air operator to operate in accordance with the applicable aviation safety regulations. When air operators fail to do this, Transport Canada takes appropriate action in the interest of public safety.
Air passengers in the communities of northeastern Ontario previously serviced by Wabusk Air can continue to use the other available air operators in this area which provide commercial air services.
Transport Canada takes its aviation safety oversight role seriously and expects every air operator to operate in accordance with the applicable aviation safety regulations. When air operators fail to do this, Transport Canada takes appropriate action in the interest of public safety.
Transport Canada is making a BIG DEAL out of canceling an obscure operator, operating certificate.
What happened to Hydro One and ORGNE helicopters after screwing up on by both operators after killing people in their supposed squeaky clean operations All this can be put at the door of the federal government for not providing sufficient Inspectors and trying to justify the use of the Safety Management System (SMS).
If the SMS is not enforced, you might as well use the paperwork it creates in the bathroom.
As the taxpayer is responsible for the BUDGET created by the lack of oversite by the government, why not make TC Aviation a Crown Corporation in line with the Air Navigation System.
The responsibility for the AIR REGULATIONS would remain with TC Aviation, the responsibility for enforcing the regulation would be handled by (ISO) International Safety Organization on a more regular basis established by TC Aviation.
The aircraft operator would be charged for the inspection at an established rate determined by TC and reimbursed by Revenue Canada under his required operating expenses at reporting time.
Let there be no mistake, to have an operating Certificate suspended is a “BIG DEAL”. As a former 10 year veteran of the TATC, I have Sat many Hearings and Appeals wherein TCCA typically went to great lengths to avoid cancelling a Document and then only as a last resort; nevertheless, TCCA doesn’t always get it right but that’s why Canada has (as a world Best Practice) a Hearing Process under the TATC. That aside, it may interest some readers to know, that not all Certificate Holders i.e. Air Taxi (702 & 703) are (still not) mandated to implement a SMS but rather encourage to adopt’. This falls far short of the rest of the world (Ref. ICAO Annex 19) and in my opinion is a huge mistake. That said, it would appear that TCCA still hasn’t corrected their initial mistake within the TCCA SMS Framework, which requires an operator under Component 3 to implement “Safety Oversight”, which is only correct at the SSP (State Safety Program) level i.e. TCCA itself.
Operators in accordance with the ICAO (Ref. Annex 19 and Doc. 9859) should operate under “Safety Assurance”. Two totally different processes, which has caused and continues to cause considerable confusion in Canada, resulting in less effective SMS and greater burden to the industry.
Here we go again, as previously stated, leave it to the governments to try and complicate things as much as they can.
Start with ICAO, accept their recommendations as far as SMS is concerned as a generic document to be used for all operators with a license in Canada.
The operator is responsible for writing up his own SMS document and submits it to TC Aviation for approval.
The operator is responsible to adhere to ALL aspects of the document they wrote and was accepted by (TCA) to obtain an operating certificate.
The actual inspection of the Operator will be carried out by a certified (ISO) Inspector hired by TCA.
The actual cost of the inspection will be paid for by the operator and billed accordingly.
The operator will be inspected using TCA requirements and as stated in the approved Operators SMS Manual.
Using the “KISS” principle, there should not be any problems.