The Transportation Safety Board of Canada is strongly recommending that the same type of plane that crashed and killed a pilot in Winnipeg last year - the Cessna 208 - be banned from flying in anything above light icing conditions.
And the TSB is asking aviation authorities on both sides of the border - Transport Canada and the Federal Aviation Administration - to go further than simply giving pilots recommendations on how to fly out of moderate and severe icing conditions.
The TSB, in an aviation investigation report released Wednesday into why the Morningstar Air Express plane, which was contracted by Federal Express, crashed shortly after takeoff on Oct. 6, 2005, at 5:43 a.m., on railway tracks near Osborne Street and Corydon Avenue, repeated the recommendation that this type of plane be grounded from flying in anything above light icing conditions.
The TSB’s initial recommendation was first reported by the Winnipeg Free Press in February.
Wendy Tadros, the TSB’s chairwoman, said she is hoping aviation authorities in both Canada and the United States take another look at the crash investigation recommendations now that the final report has been released.
“This Cessna should not take off into anything more than light icing - period,” Tadros said during a news conference on Wednesday.
“We think it would be safer if a Cessna 208 pilot never took off during anything but light icing conditions.”
When asked why it has taken so long for recommendations like this to be made, given that there have been 20 crashes of this type of plane since 1990 due to icing conditions, with 31 people killed, Tadros said: “This is the first Canadian investigation to provide enough detail to make these recommendations.”
Meanwhile, the TSB also reported for the first time that the Cessna, flown by Moncton-based pilot Nancy Chase-Allen, 49, was overweight for both normal flying conditions and operating in icing conditions.
But Peter Hildebrand, the TSB’s manager of regional operations in Winnipeg, said the fact the plane was 288 pounds overweight in normal conditions and 488 pounds overweight for icing conditions would not have caused the crash.
kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca
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