Alison Auld, THE CANADIAN PRESS

25/04/2009 3:40 PM | Comments (0)

HALIFAX, N.S. - The majority of commercial and private aircraft in Canada are flying with emergency locator beacons that use an outmoded satellite frequency, effectively silencing a lifeline that tells searchers where a plane is if it crashes or needs help.

The international satellite system that monitors the transmitters used to listen to beacons on two frequencies - the digital 406 megahertz and analog 121.5 megahertz beacons.

But as of Feb. 1, it began listening to only the digital emergency frequency.

As a result, the older analog beacons no longer alert search and rescue authorities, leaving the 75 to 85 per cent of helicopters and fixed wing aircraft that haven't made the switch in Canada virtually in the dark if they have an emergency.

"When an accident or a serious incident occurs, that's when they really act like a crew's lifeline to survival," said Carole Smith of the National Search and Rescue Secretariat, a branch of National Defence.

However, Smith says the international satellite system, and Canadian search and rescue centres, are now only listening for the newer beacons.

"Only those digital beacons that operate on a frequency of 406 megahertz will continue to be monitored," she said.

The beacon sends out a signal to the Cospas-Sarsat satellite system alerting authorities that an incident has occurred, automatically sending a location through to rescue authorities to guide them to the crash.

The devices, which can be activated manually or automatically under the force of impact, are mandated for use by Transport Canada on everything from a Cessna to a Boeing 737 and higher.

But the switch to the 406 megahertz frequency is still voluntary while the federal department drafts regulations.

Smith says the 406 digital beacon is an improvement over the older analog version because it provides ground search and rescue officials with more precise co-ordinates of a plane in distress and gives detailed information about the aircraft.

Not adapting a transmitter to use the 406 megahertz beacon means it could take far longer to determine the location of a downed plane.

Last month, a light aircraft still equipped with an analog beacon and affiliated with a training school went down near Fredericton.

Notification of the crash only came from another plane passing overhead and the location co-ordinates were far from where the small aircraft actually went down.

"It did take considerably longer than if that aircraft had a 406 megahertz beacon on board," Smith said. "(With 406 megahertz) search and rescue would have known within minutes that there was a distress and which particular aircraft was in distress."

But owners and operators have been slow to change over, saying there are fundamental, age-old problems with the transmitters that are simply being passed on with the new frequency.

John Davidson of the Civil Air Search and Rescue Association said the emergency locator transmitters have a central design flaw that means they often don't go off.

It has a one-directional gravity switch that won't get activated if it isn't hit at a certain angle when a plane crashes.

"All of the installation factors are still a problem from the original 121.5 system," he said from Winnipeg. "None of the equipment has changed other than to change the frequency and that's the rub - all of the problem sets from the original system are still there."

Critics contend the new system has its own set of deficiencies and will cost up to $4,000 to install.

The new digital system will take about 50 seconds longer to alert search officials of an emergency, in which time an aircraft can sink, turn upside down or catch fire, all of which would prevent a signal from getting out.

The system is mandatory in several countries, but it will likely be years before Canada forces aviators to make the switch.

Draft regulations have been published in the Canada Gazette and are being reviewed, but the government is expected to grant a two-year implementation period once the regulations are brought in.

"We're currently reviewing feedback from stakeholders, looking at all technologies and working on finalizing regulations," said Maryse Durette, a spokeswoman with Transport Canada.

Davidson, whose group represents about 3,500 volunteers involved in search and rescue, said he wants regulators to consider other technologies before mandating the emergency locator transmitters, or ELTs, on the 406 megahertz frequency.

"The industry is saying, 'Why don't we fix it, why don't we get newer technologies out there that monitor airplanes,"' he said. "There are too many dangers of the ELT not working properly."

About-face at Transport Canada on safety issue

Transport Canada unit restricts media interviews

Sarah Schmidt ,  Canwest News Service

OTTAWA - The federal government has failed to fully implement half the recommendations in the last decade from the Transportation Safety Board (TSB) to fix safety gaps in Canada's air transportation system, according to an analysis by Canwest News Service.

Transport Canada has fully satisfied the board in 26 of the 53 recommendations. In the remaining cases, the government has not taken adequate action to "substantially reduce or eliminate the safety deficiency" for air travellers.

Of the 27 delinquent files, the board has determined Transport Canada's response to be "unsatisfactory" in two cases, because the board has received "inadequate explanations to convince it that the risks are not worth pursuing." Both are in response to recommendations related to the Swiss Air crash off the coast of Nova Scotia in 1998 that killed 229 people.

In 10 cases, Transport Canada has committed to fix the safety deficiencies flagged by the board as far back as March 1999, but has yet to do so. On average, the board warned the government of these deficiencies 76 months ago.

The remaining 15 files remain deficient, because the steps Transport Canada has taken to date will improve safety, but not substantially reduce or eliminate the safety deficiency. The board provided the department with these recommendations, on average, 70 months ago.

The analysis does not include any recommendations made since August 2006, because Transport Canada's responses are not yet publicly available, but some address a long-standing problem previously flagged by the TSB.

Post-impact fires involving small aircraft in otherwise survivable accidents are a "well-known safety concern," the board noted in a safety-issues report dated Aug. 29. 2006, but a "cost-benefit analysis negated the proposed safety measures."

Canwest's analysis of Transport Canada's responses to air-safety recommendations comes as investigators probe two crashes in the span of seven days.

Board investigators were sent Sunday to northern Manitoba after a fire in the cockpit of a small commuter aircraft forced a crash landing. The crew and three passengers on the medevac escaped before the plane exploded.

The board is also investigating a fatal crash off B.C.'s Sunshine Coast on Nov. 16. The crash of a charter aircraft operated by Pacific Coastal Airlines killed the pilot and six passengers when the vintage, amphibious Grumman Goose carrying workers to a hydroelectric project crashed on a small island; one passenger survived.

It was the second crash fatal crash this year for the Vancouver-based airline. On Aug. 3, another Grumman Goose crashed into a mountainside on Vancouver Island, killing the pilot and four passengers; there were two survivors.

The most recent Pacific Coastal crash came just a week after the B.C. coroner's office highlighted Transport Canada's failure to implement a key safety recommendation of the board dating back years.

The B.C. coroner's office probed the deaths of a pilot and two passengers, including a three-year-old boy, after a single-engine Cessna commercial aircraft operated by Sonicblue Airways lost power on a flight from Tofino to Vancouver on Jan. 21, 2006, and crashed near a logging road near Port Alberni. Five passengers survived.

The coroner's report noted that regulations in the United States would not have allowed the aircraft to fly in this area unless it was equipped with a terrain-awareness and warning system. Canada had no such requirement, even though the report noted the safety board had previously recommended the installation of those systems.

Transport Canada approved these equipment requirements in 2005, "however, implementation and compliance have been delayed," the coroner's report stated.

In its January 2008 report, the TSB determined that the lack of equipment enabling the pilot to locate and identify high terrain was one of the contributing factors to the Sonicblue crash.

Department spokesman Patrick Charette said Monday a new terrain-awareness proposal will be ready for industry to review next spring, and, once the new rules come into force, aircraft will have two years to comply.

In cases where files are stalled, Charette said some of the TSB recommendations refer to areas of jurisdiction not exclusive to Transport Canada. And others require changes to aircraft design, which cannot be done without further study, he said.

None of this washes well with Jonathan Huggett, whose 25-year-old son, Edward, died in the pilot's chair of the Sonicblue aircraft.

"Had my son had the terrain-awareness and warning system, it would have said, 'You're too close to the ground, you've got to get out of here.' Had he all the right gear, it was probably a survivable incident," Huggett said in an interview.

Kirsten Stevens points to other examples of unfulfilled safety recommendations.

Her husband, David, was one of five occupants who survived impact and escaped from their float plane, but later died after it crashed on waters near , on Feb. 28, 2005.

Her husband's body was the only one found; autopsy results showed he died of drowning and suffered from extreme hypothermia.

While the TSB did not investigate this crash, the board's analysis of another fatal float plane crash seven months later involving a drowning death highlighted a recommendation in 1994 to require occupants to wear life-jackets while taking off or landing, but noted Transport Canada believed this "provides no tangible and quantifiable safety improvement."

The Nov. 11, 2006, report also cited an aviation safety advisory to Transport Canada dated March 2000, "regarding its concerns regarding the apparent lack of progress among seaplane operators to address the issue of underwater escape."

Another Transport Canada float-plane safety review launched after a series of crashes in 2005 resulted in more recommendations in 2006, but they have not been enacted. The review was "inconclusive," according to internal Transport Canada correspondence dated May 23, 2008.

And senior managers in the civil aviation unit "agreed that, in the absence of a clear way forward, this file would be put on hold in deference to other civil aviation priorities," states the document, released to Stevens under Access to Information.  

"There are so many recommendations and they're not acted on, and people are still dying," said Stevens.

But Charette pointed to fully implemented recommendations, including a new requirement for cockpit voice recorders to have a capacity of at least two hours, up from 30 minutes, and new rules governing runway approaches in poor visibility.

The investigation system

The Transportation Safety Board does not investigate all accidents, but, when it does, Transport Canada must respond within 90 days to any recommendations. The board uses four categories to assess the department's responses - fully satisfactory, satisfactory intent, satisfactory in part and unsatisfactory.

Fully satisfactory: if action taken by Transport Canada will "substantially reduce or eliminate the safety deficiency."

Satisfactory intent: if the planned action when fully implemented will substantially reduce or eliminate the safety deficiency. "However, for the present, the action has not been sufficiently advanced to reduce the risks to transportation safety."

Satisfactory in part: if the planned action or the action taken to date will reduce, but not substantially reduce or eliminate, the deficiency. In these cases, the board continues to follow up to review options to further mitigate risks.

Unsatisfactory: if no action has been taken or proposed that will reduce or eliminate the deficiency. "In the board's view, the safety deficiency will continue to put persons, property or the environment at risk."

In most cases, there is a back-and-forth between the TSB and Transport Canada until the board is either satisfied or concludes the department has no intention of fully implementing the recommendation. In both cases, the file then becomes inactive. Other cases remain active files with a "deficiency" label.

ROBERT MATAS

rmatas@globeandmail.com

November 22, 2008

VANCOUVER -- Hugh Danford believes he knows what was in the mind of the pilot of the amphibious Grumman Goose plane as he took off from Vancouver airport on his last flight with the fog rolling in last Sunday morning.

The pilot left in bad weather, got into worse and kept going. The plane crashed less than 20 minutes later, plowing through tree tops and slamming into a hillside on nearby Thormanby Island. The pilot and six passengers were killed. One bewildered passenger survived with severe burns.

Peter McLeod, 53, an Australian, had been with Pacific Coastal Airlines for only nine months. But he had been flying on the West Coast for four years and had more than 13,000 hours on his record. On his final trip, he was taking construction workers to a remote hydroelectric project in the Toba Valley on British Columbia's Sunshine Coast.

Mr. Danford, 61, has about 30 years of experience as a pilot. After beginning his career in Northern Manitoba, he flew small bush planes extensively in Antarctica and the oil fields of northern Africa. He believes Mr. McLeod would have been aware of the risks posed by the weather. Even though the airport cleared the flight for take-off, the pilot would realize the fog could be much worse just around the corner.

"You're scud-running and you feel safe because you are in a boat, really, a flying boat," Mr. Danford said in an interview from his home in Ottawa. "And you always have that in the back of your mind - I can put this down anywhere. It floats."

Everyone wonders what that guy was thinking when he took off in the fog, Mr. Danford said.

"Well, he was thinking what we all thought when we all lucked out. I figured I had nine lives and then some. That's the kind of flying it is."

But don't jump to conclusions when attributing blame, he quickly added. Look at why the pilot did what he did.

Recalling his experience in Northern Manitoba, Mr. Danford said pilots who fly in marginal circumstances are often under pressure to take the flight. "It was, if you don't take it, the other guy will. And if you do that too often, you don't have a job," Mr. Hanford said.

Looking at only the pilot, the weather or the condition of the aging plane cannot make sense of the accident. "The cause of the accident is no regulatory supervision," Mr. Danford said. No one was watching to ensure that safety regulations were followed, he said.

A week after the crash, investigators from the Transportation Safety Board of Canada have begun looking for answers. TSB spokesman Bill Yearwood said yesterday that investigators took photographs and collected items from the wreckage scene before the RCMP, the coroner and the media went through the site. They are interviewing people while events are fresh in their minds and gathering documents.

The TSB decides whether to dig deep into the cause of an accident only when the initial review indicates that something new can be learned. The Grumman Goose crash was one of those accidents requiring an exhaustive review, Mr. Yearwood said.

A public report of the investigation, possibly with recommendations for changes to improve safety, will be issued once the team discovers "the ultimate source" of the accident, he said. Investigators will also consider whether lack of enforcement of Transport Canada regulations was an issue.

Last weekend's crash evoked troublesome memories for Kirsten Stevens. The TSB decided not to investigate the fatal accident that killed her husband Dave and four others on Feb. 28, 2005. Authorities listed the crash for statistical purposes, but did not pursue what happened.

Ms. Stevens and the families of others killed in the accident could not accept the TSB's response. Ms. Stevens said she believes a closer look at accidents would save lives. "There are recommendations that should have come out of our accident, and if those recommendations had by now been issued, there is a good chance that lives could have already been saved," she said.

Mr. Stevens was on a DeHavilland Beaver float plane with three other passengers when the pilot took off in stormy weather from Campbell River on Vancouver Island. The plane disappeared. Three days later, Mr. Stevens's body washed ashore, but the float plane, the pilot and other passengers have never been found.

The official search for the plane and its passengers stretched into April, 2005. The families of the missing passengers were under the impression that officials had dismissed the accident as the result of bad weather and possible pilot error.

Undeterred by the TSB's refusal to issue a formal report, the families continued the search with the help of friends, neighbours and businesses and located the wreckage in the summer of 2005. They retrieved the fuselage, but not the engine. To the untrained eye, oil on the windscreen and smoke scarring indicated that an engine problem may have precipitated a crash landing.

The TSB investigators disagreed. Finally, in September, 2007, the families' search team pulled up the engine. After another review of the available evidence, investigators concluded no mechanical malfunction had occurred.

Frustrated with the TSB response, the families turned to an outside investigator. He found problems with the plane - illegal replacement parts, inadequate patches on the floats - as well as systemic issues that may have contributed to the accident. Ms. Stevens said she has learned a lot about the workings of the aviation industry since her husband's death.

Numerous recommendations have been made over the years dealing with the safety of the small planes flying into bad weather, but implementation of the changes has been spotty, she said.

Mr. Danford worked for five years at Transport Canada, from 1998 when he started in the enforcement area until he left on sick leave.

A self-proclaimed whistle-blower, he said he was pushed out of the department for allegations that the regulators were not doing their job.

He is now helping out a small but highly vocal group that is making plans to go to Parliament Hill in January to lobby for significant changes in the role of Transport Canada and TSB. "I expect by the time we get there," Mr. Danford said, "some of the families from the latest crash will be with us as well, knocking on some doors."

DANGER IN THE AIR

A job flying in the small planes commonly used as air taxis and for charter flights in British Columbia is almost as dangerous as logging, the deadliest job in the province.

In the past 20 years, the death rate for those flying in a small fixed-wing plane with a pilot and nine or fewer passengers was marginally less than the death rate for logging, according to statistics compiled this week by WorkSafeBC for The Globe and Mail.

The death rate was 28.7 per 10,000 person years of employment in logging, compared to 27.6 per 10,000 person years of employment aboard small planes.

The statistics have varied significantly over the years. The fatality rate for flying in small planes was significantly higher than logging from 1988 to 1997, with the rate for logging at 25.7 per 10,000 person years of employment and the rate for flying at 41.6 per 10,000 person years of employment. It reversed in the following decade as the rate for logging increased significantly. From 1998 to 2007, the death rate in logging was 36.1 per 10,000 person years of employment, compared to 11.1 per 10,000 person years of employment for flying.

The hazards of flying in B.C. are well known: mountainous terrain, difficult weather and remote geography are compounded by pilots with little experience and self-dispatch practices. The variety of activity is also unusual. The smaller planes are used for heli-skiing, heli-logging, fire suppression activities, game hunting and sightseeing as well as air-taxi services.

Increased risks have given B.C. a disproportionate number of the accidents in the country. B.C. accounts for 105 of 507 accidents over the past decade in Canada involving small planes with a pilot and nine or fewer passengers, according to statistics from the Transportation Safety Board of Canada.

The statistics also show that the Grumman Goose, a sturdy Second World War-era plane that has been in two fatal accidents within the past four months, is relatively safe. It flies without computer instrumentation, but has been involved in only four of the 105 accidents reported in B.C. over the past 10 years.

THE FACTS

When the Grumman Goose took off from Vancouver on Sunday, the visibility was less than five kilometres, meaning the pilot had to get special permission from the tower. He got the permission.

TSB SMALL*, COMMERCIAL

PLANE ACCIDENTS BY PROVINCE

*703-air taxis seat nine or fewer

DEATH RATES COMPARED

Over the 20 years, the death rate for flying is just below that of logging - 28.7 per 10,000 person years of employment for logging, compared to 27.6 per 10,000 person years of flying for a living.

THE GRUMMAN G-21A

Reportable accidents, in B.C., since 1988

*as of Nov. 18

TONIA COWAN/THE GLOBE AND MAIL

SOURCE: VANCOUVER AIRPORT; ENVIRONMENT CANADA; WORKSAFEBC-THE WORKER'S COMPENSATION BOARD

(Dolores Ochoa/AP) Transport Canada's man in charge of aviation safety doesn't like the term SMS, referring to it as a "buzzword." But Merlin Preuss has nevertheless spent a fair bit of time recently defending the concept, which he says will lead to a more accountable aviation industry — and safer skies. Critics such as retired justice Virgil Moshansky, on the other hand, argue that Transport Canada's Safety Management Systems allows the industry to police itself, which is akin to "putting the fox in charge of the hen house."

So as we move into an era of deregulation for many major industries, who are Canadians to believe?

SMS (Safety Management Systems), the shorthand Transport Canada uses to describe its new approach, makes the aviation industry responsible for implementing systems designed to ensure safe air travel in Canada. Under the concept, the federal department will do fewer direct safety audits of air carriers, instead keeping watch over safety checks done by the airlines themselves.

In a spring report, federal Auditor General Sheila Fraser examined Transport Canada's march toward fully implementing its air safety management system. The report uses the following example to define the safety management system:

"For example, instead of conducting an inspection to assess whether the tires in the aircraft landing gear are sufficiently inflated, Transport Canada will assess whether a company has the systems in place to ensure that the tires are inflated, following up if necessary. The goal is to make companies more accountable for the management of risks. Transport Canada will still be accountable for safety oversight. The department maintains that safety management systems will allow more thorough identification and resolution of potential safety problems, making the transportation system safer."

'I would strongly recommend that the federal government assume a proactive approach to taking the pulse of the aviation safety in this country, before another major air disaster occurs, as is being predicted by many responsible and informed individuals in the aviation industry.'—2007 report by retired judge Virgil Moshansky

SMS is akin to trends in other industrial sectors, such as the food industry. In the wake of a massive meat recall caused by a deadly outbreak of listeriosis in August this year, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency is facing questions about allowing the industry to, in the words of the Agriculture Union of the Public Service Alliance of Canada, "police itself."

Though SMS was introduced in the late 1990s, it was only in 2005 that Transport Canada began asking larger carriers to start developing their own systems. According to the auditor general, the entire airline industry is expected to have safety management systems in place between 2011 and 2013. "Until then, Transport Canada has the task of managing the transition, while continuing its oversight responsibilities," the auditor general's report says.

Assessing SMS

One of the findings after the inquiry into the 1989 crash of an Air Ontario Fokker F-28 jet in Dryden, Ont., in which 24 people died, urged Transport Canada to hire more inspectors. In a 2007 report entitled The Role of the Judiciary in Aviation Safety: The Inside Story and Legacy of Dryden, retired judge Virgil Moshansky, who headed up the Dryden inquiry, repeated a warning that he had issued to parliamentarians months earlier:

"Having regard to the documented systemic problems in the aviation industry which have been surfacing for some time now, I am of the view that, 18 years after the Dryden crash, another wakeup call to Transport Canada is overdue. I would strongly recommend that the federal government assume a proactive approach to taking the pulse of the aviation safety in this country, before another major air disaster occurs, as is being predicted by many responsible and informed individuals in the aviation industry."

Critics like Moshansky argue that Transport Canada is eliminating many of the checks and balances it needs in order to ensure safety, at a time when the department is relying on the industry police itself.

Lack of resources

John Scott, who has been a pilot for 42 years, used to work for the federal aviation safety board as an accident investigator and now speaks for the Retired Airline Pilots Association of Canada. He remembers a time when Transport Canada had more inspectors than it currently employs.

'According to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), the rapidly expanding aviation industry and the limited resources of oversight authorities make it increasingly difficult to sustain the existing approach to managing safety.'—Auditor General Sheila Fraser

"They would go to airlines, or flight schools, and they would be the ones conducting the tests. They would do the evaluations and they would give you your ticket," Scott said. "Over time, the number of inspectors has continually decreased. I'm not going to say that Transport Canada has abrogated their responsibility, but the responsibility for checking has essentially devolved to the companies."

In her report, the auditor general pointed out that "in 2006, air transport in Canada carried 99 million passengers, up 6 per cent from 2005, and the number is expected to grow 40 per cent from 2006 to 2015. According to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), the rapidly expanding aviation industry and the limited resources of oversight authorities make it increasingly difficult to sustain the existing approach to managing safety."

During his appearance before Parliament's public accounts committee this summer, Preuss, Transport Canada's director general of civil aviation, was asked about the number of inspectors. He conceded there were 134 vacancies, but offered little elaboration. In an e-mailed response, Transport Canada explained that 15 of those vacancies are engineers — as opposed to inspectors. The department's inspectorate workforce now stands at 737. Taking the vacancies into consideration, Transport Canada is unable to fill 15 per cent of its inspectorate workforce.

Mike Wing, national president of the Union of Canadian Transportation Employees, which represents the civil aviation safety inspectors who work for Transport Canada, said Preuss's testimony shows the number of people conducting inspections is diminishing. That means there will be increased reliance on the industry to monitor itself with little oversight from Transport Canada, Wing said.

Air transport in Canada carried 99 million passengers in 2006, up 6 per cent from 2005, and the number is expected to grow 40 per cent from 2006 to 2015. (Michael Probst/AP)"This is about changing the type of inspection that we do," he said. "We're going to be primarily just taking a look at safety management. There will be much fewer specialists in the system. There will be people trained on SMS and things to look for in safety management systems, but it doesn't mean that those people have got the technical background that the inspectorate has traditionally had to ensure safety."

While Preuss conceded that the number of inspectors Transport Canada will need under SMS is an open question, he categorically denied that his department is abrogating responsibility for safety. Transport Canada will still conduct its own inspections under SMS, but in addition, it will now monitor the industry's safety systems, which are much better than they used to be, he said.

"No, we're not even asking [the industry] to police themselves. We are asking them to identify hazards before they become big problems … and you break a rule, you've created a hazard virtually by definition," Preuss said. "So one of the things we've asked them to do is put a system in place that shows us that yesterday and today and tomorrow, you're in compliance with the current regulations. And that gets inspected, and we have all the enforcement tools we had yesterday and we will apply them — and we have."

However, an internal memo from November 2006 casts some doubt on the vigilance with which the department will monitor the industry. In his paper, The Role of the Judiciary in Aviation Safety, Moshansky sums up that memo: "Transport Canada instructed its aviation inspectors not to initiate any further enforcement investigations into regulatory contraventions and to close all open cases against SMS certificate holders."

Whistleblower protection

Another important check on the system is protection for employees — whether with the airline industry or Transport Canada - who speak out about safety concerns. The Accountability Act offers some protection, and so, too, does bill C-7, the piece of legislation that gives Transport Canada the legal authority it needs to fully implement the security management system. The bill is currently in its third reading before Parliament and has not yet passed into law.

Charlambe "Bobby" Boutris, FAA aviation safety inspector and Boeing 737-700 Partial Program Manager for aircraft maintenance at the Southwest Airlines (SWA) Certificate Management Office (left), testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington on April 3, 2008, before the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee hearing on FAA safety oversight of airlines. (Lawrence Jackson/AP)In order to get a sense of how important whistleblowers can be, one need only look at the United States and the experiences of Bobby Boutris and Doug Peters. The two inspectors with the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration spoke out publicly about safety concerns at Southwest Airline after unsuccessfully attempting to deal with the problems internally.

In Canada, bill C-7 does offer some protection, although it has no specific whistleblower protection.

"Although whistleblower protection was not introduced, the House [transport] committee agreed to add a number of new provisions to the bill that provide additional protection for employees who provide information under management systems and voluntary reporting process," states a Library of Parliament summary of the progress of bill C-7.

The summary has this to say about the additional protection: "The House committee further clarified under the new section 5.392(3) that a Canadian aviation document holder shall not use information disclosed under the management system in disciplinary proceedings against the employee who disclosed the information unless sanctioned under the management system. It also added section 5.392(4) to protect an employee who disclosed information in good faith under the management system against reprisals, including measures that adversely affect them, the employee's employment, or working conditions, from the Canadian aviation document holder."

As far as Transport Canada's director of policy and regulatory services, Franz Reinhardt, is concerned, bill C-7 protects employees.

"Transport Canada needs as much safety information as possible, so that's why we encourage employees to report internally through non-punitive, voluntary reporting within the company to make sure the company will have identification of safety hazards and can take corrective measure[s] as soon as possible, even before small incidents evolve into bigger accidents," Reinhardt said. "And in bill C-7, we have drafted the provisions for a whistleblower protection for individuals reporting internally who would be afraid of reprisals … regarding their employment. So if they do avail themselves of that internal reporting system, they may rest assured that, if no followup is made and they report publicly, that they will be protected and there will be no danger for their employment."

Union president Wing disagreed with Reinhardt's assessment.

"I don't see anything in the legislation that says that is the case … the [transport] committee did have an amendment to ensure whistleblower protection within this act. They [parliament] turned down that amendment," Wing said. "So in my mind, this act does not have that protection."

Scott of the Retired Airline Pilots Association of Canada also said there isn't enough protection.

"Until the Canadian government through the legal body produces a very clear whistleblower protection for aviation, then we're not there yet," he said.

"If the Canadian government were to have a look at the whistleblower protection that's been established in the United States, that is as good a founding to use as a premise … because they have done an awful lot of research," Scott added.

In addition to the need for increased traditional inspections and better whistleblower protection, critics such as Scott and Moshansky also feel there should be regular inquiries into air safety, preferably of a judicial nature, where witnesses can be compelled to testify.

They also feel that a third party, much like the office of the federal auditor general, should be set up to monitor whether Transport Canada is doing its job.

Without these checks and balances, the critics charge, Canada is setting itself up for potential disaster.