imverge

Just had an American friend of mine who is supposed to be visiting over the holidays - call and ask what's going on with Air Canada and these incidents. They are having second doubts about flying AC.

rankourabu

Just another modern aircraft in AC's fleet

Serial number 174
Type 320-211
First flight date 07/02/1991
Test registration F-WWIM
Plane age 26.7 years

And yes, it flew right back to YUL, so good bye evidence.

avcritic

The first blogger doesn't know the difference between "mayday" and "mayday fuel" AKA fuel emergency.

On pprune, there are lot of general comments. Apparently there is no standard procedure through out the world on handling fuel emergencies, ICAO, FAA and EASA have their own definitions. Those with bigger picture WX, runway closure, capacity at other aiports, NOTAMs at other airports seems to think it was not the best performance by ACA crew.

Lastly there was a poster on airliners.net, likely a Cathay Pacific pilot who is familiar with this region expressed concerns about crew's actions.

This was a major incident putting 200 lives at risk, heads should roll, question is who? Controllers or crew. TSB has to decide.

Mountain Explorer

I keep having to guess whether each post is referring to SFO or India or something else. Mods: why combine completely unrelated incidents into a single gigantic thread about Winnipeg?? It seems like that just creates unnecessary confusion.

ridefar

"Having doubts about flying AC". Hmmm, it is tough to discuss that dispassionately or in an evidence based way that is not going to devolve into AC lovers/haters.

So let me put it a different way, if I may: is there a specific threshold in Canada, with the TSB, or outside of Canada with FAA or somewhere that would trigger a review or investigation of the airline? Meaning so many near misses within a specific time frame, so many violations or incidents or some sort that would cross a threshold and make a safety review mandatory? Or is this just all collectively discretionary and we are just supposed to trust that even 20 (or 50 or 100) smaller problems are not indicative of a systemic issue? And yes I know there haven't been 20 issues, it is just for purposes of framing the question.

YEG_SE4Life

I can't speak to the airline business. A motor carrier has to have a Safety Fitness Certificate in most provinces. They just call it something else in other provinces. As a motor carrier has violations or incidents, they get recorded on their profile. When they have a certain amount of violations or incidents, an audit is sparked. The results of the audit could force the carrier off the road. I don't know, but I suspect aviation would also have some form of Safety Fitness measure.

ridefar

How did they leave without a working radio?

Yes maintenance.

Are those records online? That might help clarify how real the radio failure was.

24left

With all due respect imverge...

There are people on this forum and those who lurk, who know significantly more than I do about these matters including whether Air Canada is safe to fly. Perhaps they can address the technical aspects of whether fear is warranted.

It's a good thing the wider flying public doesn't know about sites like AvHerald. one peek at the first page on any given day would send the fearful into panic mode.

Stranger

More likely some mundane stuff such as being tuned to the wrong frequency. Perhaps inadvertently.

Mountain Explorer

It's extremely more likely that this was pilot error, not a failure of the radio

ridefar

Kinda what I thought.

My my point was that if there are maintenance records on line and they show nothing and the plane still left then we know the busted radio thing is bs.

Hey I know nothing. Just asking questions. And I am asking questions because if I am going to fly 150 times a year I want to pick the safest airline possible. I haven’t questioned if AC is unsafe until recently. I am well aware of real vs perceived risk. I guess the questions are due to the fact that we lack sufficient data to determine if their is really cause for concern or merely inaccurate perception.

CZAMFlyer

Have you discounted the possibility that radios and other mechanical items can fail between the times the airplane is inspected? Things rarely break whilst just sitting still. They break when being used.

YEG_SE4Life

If the radio wasn't working, the crew would not have received instructions to taxi. There is no mention of that. Cause for armchair speculation.

ridefar

I am not discounting anything. I am asking a question. Honestly I know nothing at all about flying other than I generally enjoy being on a plane. And lately I have had cause to wonder if AC is as safe as they used to be. I have no idea if that is reasonable, rational, irrational, or just plain dumb. Or some combination of the above. But, as I said, as somebody like many others here that flies a lot, it strikes me as a fair thing to ask if I am being rational or irrational. And if nothing else I don't think AC is being sufficiently forthcoming with the data that might allow me/us to make an informed determination.

jmastron

There will at least be records of a mechanic taking a reported problem and attempting to reproduce, diagnose, or fix, whether any parts were replaced, etc.

In reality, the most likely explanation is that pilots not paying full attention set the wrong frequency and didn't notice the red light alerting them due to the same inattention. This will all be obvious from the CVR...oh wait, the airline let the potentially negligent pilots leave with passengers on a potentially malfunctioning (hah) plane, destroying that evidence.

Personally, I think it's time for some heavy FAA sanctions on AC. I'm not sure
whether that should be banning from SFO for a time, insisting that the pilots and dispatchers involved come testify under penalty of perjury, declaring that any passenger that wants a ticket refund can have one, or what. There's something systematically wrong here that nobody at the airline seems interested in fixing.

And yes, as mentioned, this incident seems much more related to the SFO incident thread where it started then disappeared, than this long catchall "Winnipeg" thread.