Unstable approaches that continue to landing have been dropped from the Transportation Safety Board (TSB) of Canada’s Watchlist of top transportation safety issues, TSB said today in releasing its Watchlist 2018.
TSB said unstable approaches that continue to landing at Canadian airports was one of three issues removed from the list because of “actions taken by stakeholders and/or progress achieved in reducing the underlying safety deficiencies.” The other two issues were the transportation of flammable liquids by rail and the need for on-board voice and video recorders in main-track locomotives.
“That’s the good news, said TSB Chair Kathy Fox in releasing the new Watchlist. “What’s more troubling is the ongoing status of some persisting issues that have been on the Watchlist for some time.”
Watchlist 2018 contains two aviation-specific issues, one each for the rail and marine sectors, and three that are considered multimodal.
The two aviation-specific risks are the risk of collisions on runways due to runway incursions and runway overruns. Both issues appeared on Watchlist 2016, and the risk of runway collisions also was on the 2014, 2012 and 2010 lists.
According to TSB, Nav Canada recorded an average of 445 runway incursions per year in Canada from 2013 to 2017, and the incursion rate per aircraft movement has increased from 6.6 per 100,000 arrivals to 7.8 per 10,000 arrivals.
“While the majority of these incursions posed little to no risk, there were 21 high-severity events in each of the past two years,” TSB said. “These could have led to a collision with aircraft, damage, injuries, and loss of life.”
TSB also said that, since 2013, there have been an average of nine runway overrun accidents and incidents per year in Canada. “These can result in aircraft damage, injuries, and even loss of life — and the consequences can be particularly serious when there is no adequate runway end safety area (RESA) or suitable arresting material,” TSB said.
Three multimodal safety issues that made the Watchlist were safety management and oversight, slow progress toward addressing TSB recommendations and fatigue management in all three modes.
“At the TSB we recognize that fatigue can affect performance. We see it in one investigation after the other, across all modes of transportation,” said Fox. “Transport Canada, operators, unions, and employees all share the responsibility for preventing and managing fatigue at work. This also calls for a profound change in attitudes and behaviours, both at the management and operational levels.”
Fox is scheduled to speak at the Foundation’s 71st annual International Air Safety Summit (IASS 2018) in Seattle, Nov. 12–14.
