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The crash at New York’s LaGuardia Airport, in which two Air Canada pilots died, has brought up questions of safety protocols and workloads for air traffic controllers.
NAV Canada, which operates the country’s civil air navigation system, has processes in place to mitigate risk.
On Wednesday, the organization said it is short an estimated 200 air traffic controllers and is working on building its capacity.
Following the deadly crash, pilots have told Global News that the protocols, including those at Vancouver International Airport (YVR), are not always followed in practice.
“It’s certainly the case that positions are occasionally combined in air traffic controller towers,” Capt. Tim Perry, president of the Airline Pilots Association (ALPA), said.
“And that’s the experience of any pilot who has flown into YVR and in fact, many other airports across the country. But I also want to emphasize that that’s not necessarily an unsafe practice. There are protocols and procedures for combining positions within an air traffic control tower. However, we … are in favour in general of robust staffing and we have raised it as an issue.”
Officially, the duties of aircraft arrivals, departures and ground movements are split between people in the YVR tower. However, combining positions does happen.
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Perry said that it is pilots’ experience in Canada that combining positions and air traffic control towers does occur in Canada and it happens more than they would like to see.
The cause of the crash at New York’s LaGuardia Airport is still under investigation.
On Tuesday, officials from the National Transportation Safety Board said two people were working in the tower at the time of the collision, including the local controller and the controller in charge.
However, it is not known how many people were working in the tower at the time and staffing levels would be part of the overall investigation into what happened.
Perry said they have every confidence in the investigation process and that it will lead to robust recommendations that will make aviation safer.
“We have raised the issues of staffing levels at air traffic control units alongside our professional colleagues, who are air traffic controllers themselves, but it is a practice we’d like to see mitigated,” Perry said.
“I want to be clear that when positions are combined inside an air traffic controller, inside an air traffic control tower, there are protocols put in place to maintain the safety of Canadians and we want those protocols followed. And we should always be looking to evolve and enhance any protocols as needed.”
ALPA represents 13,500 members across Canada and Perry said all the members are mourning the loss of the two pilots who died at LaGuardia.
“A lot of us have operated those flights and anytime anything like this happens, it’s very close to home and it’s deeply felt by our members,” he said.
–with files from The Canadian Press
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