Second crash highlights runway safety

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The second airplane accident in three days occurred at an airfield in eastern Manitoba near the Little Grand Rapids First Nation on Friday, Dec. 12.

Early that afternoon, a twin engine Navaho plane, owned by Northway Aviation in Winnipeg, ran out of runway after aborting a take-off from the remote airstrip, 300 km northeast of Winnipeg, reported the Little Grand Rapids RCMP.

The plane, carrying two passengers and a pilot, was taxiing down the gravel runway, ready for take-off, when the front door opened.

Trying to abort the take-off, the pilot veered left and skidded off the end of the runway. The plane ended up in a snow bank. No one was injured.

The accident comes after a Dec. 9 crash of a commuter plane carrying 17 people. That plane, an Embraer 110, broke into pieces after hitting trees one km from the airstrip. Four people were killed in that crash.

The two accidents are raising questions regarding the safety of the 840 m (2,800 ft) packed gravel airstrip - questions which have plagued the 1,200 residents of the nearby First Nation for more than two decades.

Joe Malcolm, the executive director for the Southeast Tribal Council, said the need for a better runway surface and location of the airstrip has been a concern in the community since the airfield was built more than 20 years ago.

One of Malcolm's colleagues was killed and six others were injured in the Dec. 9 crash. Malcolm said the airfield is not in the best location, the runway is gravel, and not long enough.

"It's a gravel base and very short. There's a lake at one end and the rapids on the other end. It is not ideally located at all," he said. "The community has been saying the same thing for the last 20 years."

Malcolm hopes the recent accidents will draw more attention to the airstrip and perhaps lead to some action.

Little Grand Rapids band councillor Nelson Keeper said the airstrip could be improved.

"It is well maintained, but from a pilot's perspective, it could do with some upgrades," he said.

The provincial government's Department of Highways, which operates the airstrip and 21 others like it in northern Manitoba, said improvements would be nice, but they are too costly. The department maintains the airstrips are safe.

Dave Selby, the director for Northern Airports and Marine Operations in Manitoba, said the runway at Little Grand Rapids was certified in the early 1970s and continues to meet the standards set aside by Transport Canada.

He admitted the runway was small, but said it can accommodate the types of aircraft which have been utilizing the airfield for the last 20 years.

Up to this point, the record of incidents at the airfield was good, he said, considering that more than 5,000 flights land and take-off from the runway each year.

Selby said the department and the First Nation have discussed the airfield in the past and their feelings have been documented. Selby said he can even understand their concern.

"If we were to build a runway today, chances are we wouldn't put it there," he said, admitting that it was an awkward location for access by the Little Grand Rapids community, who have to drive around a lake to get to the airfield.

Any improvements or re-location of the airstrip is not in the cards yet, he said, until other priorities are met and funding is located.

At the Little Grand Rapids site, Selby said the dollar figure would be huge to pave the runway or to lengthen it.

"We are talking fairly big bucks. It's not just the paving of the runways per se, although it would be nice to do, it would multiply the maintenance costs by two or three times," he said.

The airfield is basic, with no control tower and no recording devices for communication between pilots and the maintenance workers at the airport. There is only a non-directional beacon which gives pilots a bearing on where the airport is.

The Transportation Safety Board in Manitoba reports that the accidents are the first since 1994 when a small engine airlane made a forced landing in a swamp after taking off from the airfield. No one was injured in that accident.

Transportation Safety Board investigators and the RCMP were looking at both of the recent accidents trying to determine a cause for each. Reports on the accidents are expected early in the new year.