Transport Canada to mandate life vests

The federal government expects to make it mandatory for float-plane occupants across the country to wear life vests during flights, a senior Transport Canada official said Monday. "I have every reason to believe we'll end up with [the wearing of life vests] being mandated in some way," Martin Eley, director general of civil aviation, said in an interview.

Typically, vests are folded in pockets under plane seats, where there is little or no chance that panicked passengers will grab them before they leave a plane that is filling fast with water.

Eley also said he supports improvements such as emergency pop-out windows to assist passengers escaping a float plane, but noted that mandating such a solution is complicated by the different configurations of float planes.

"There's no question it's a good notion," he said.

"Is that solution readily available for all aircraft? Not necessarily. What makes sense? We need something sensible that we can defend in order to put it into legislation. If we can come up with a clear performance standard, that would open the door to mandating it. We're pursuing it. We just have to be cautious about the specifics."

Transport Canada was responding to the March 17, 2011, recommendations of the federal transportation safety board's report on the Nov. 29, 2009, crash of a Seair Seaplanes de Havilland Beaver float plane off Saturna Island that killed six passengers.

The pilot and one other passenger escaped with serious injuries, but also might have perished had not two bumpers come off the sinking aircraft and served as lifebuoys until help arrived.

The safety board, which investigates crashes and makes recommendations to the regulator, Transport Canada, urged that "all new and existing commercial seaplanes be fitted with regular and emergency exits that allow rapid egress following a survivable collision with water" and that "occupants of commercial seaplanes wear a device that provides personal flotation following emergency egress."

Transport Canada plans to meet with industry representatives next month to discuss the issues, the outcome of which will be presented to the Canadian Aviation Regulation Advisory Council.

In the meantime, Transport Canada has issued a safety alert urging float-plane operators to implement "safety design improvements" to their aircraft to assist occupants in escaping a crash in water.

The department also recommends operators adopt "best practices," including upperbody restraints for front-seat occupants, briefing passengers on the proper usage of flotation devices during emergency egress, and underwater emergency-egress training for flight crews.

Bill Yearwood, the safety board's regional manager based in Richmond, said that his office will take up to 60 days to study the initiatives and rate the degree to which Transport Canada has taken the board's recommendations to heart. The board has been recommending wearing of life vests since 1994.

Patrick Morrissey, who lost his wife and infant daughter in the Seair crash, gave Transport Canada credit for its plan to mandate the wearing of life vests during flights, but noted the government is far behind industry's voluntary initiatives.

Five smaller operators are already giving out life vests to passengers, and the larger Float plane Operators Association (FOA) said it plans to follow suit. Viking Air, the Sidney-based type certificate holder for the Beaver, has also produced kits for pop-out windows and improved door latches.

"Kudos to the float-plane industry for responding and paving the way on public safety," he said.

"Now is the time for Transport Canada to make a quick and relatively easy win by making the [safety board] recommendations mandatory."

FOA spokesman Lyle Soetaert said his group will work with Transport Canada "to ensure that any life-vest system introduced enables passengers unencumbered exit in the rare event of an emergency, and a usable flotation device outside of the aircraft."

The Vancouver Sun is nominated for a Michener Award for meritorious public-service journalism for Broken Wings, a series on float-plane safety. The winner will be announced tonight in a ceremony at Rideau Hall, the Governor-General's official residence.

To learn more about floatplane safety, visit tc.gc.ca/ floatplanes.

lpynn@vancouversun.com

? (c) CanWest MediaWorks Publications Inc.

Source: http://feeds.canada.com/~r/canwest/F262/~3/H1rJcyj4ls4/story.html

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