TSB says poor communication played role in plane skidding on icy Halifax runway

The Transportation Safety Board has released a report underlining the importance of communication, especially during periods of bad weather, after a plane skidded180 degrees on a runway at Halifax Stanfield International Airport in March.

None of the 211 passengers and eight crew members were hurt and the Boeing 767 wasn't damaged. The incident happened at the same time as a shift change for the crews responsible for monitoring and maintaining the runway.

As part ofthesafety actions outlined in the TSB report, the airport will use a mandatory checklist this winter for airfield maintenance supervisors to ensure that key information, such as weather and runway conditions are shared between shift changes in poor weather.

Halifax International Airport Authority spokesperson Tiffany Chasesaid italso launched its own investigation and safety review.

"We identified opportunities to improve our runway service condition reporting procedures," she said."And so,that is a report that airport staff prepare that is provided to the tower and NAV Canada staff."

Around 6:30 p.m. on March 4, Air Canada flight 614 from Toronto slid 180 degrees ona runway during icy conditions. In its report, the TSB says allwheels of the plane remained on the runway during the skid.

Runway was like 'a skating rink'

An Embraer jet that landed on the same runway, minutes before the Air Canada plane, said the "braking action was very poor, actually," according to the report, and that the runway was "very, very icy; it's basically a skating rink."

When it comes to proper phrasing describing braking in the industry, the standard is to report either "good," "medium," "poor," or "nil." But the report also said it's OK to use plain language.

The TSB said the Air Canada crew was told the runway was very slippery, but the "very poor" braking conditions described by the crew in the Embraer jet were not passed on the to the Air Canada crew.

"As the [Air Canada] aircraft slowed and the crew reduced reverse thrust, the braking action was noted to become nil," the report said.

At the same time, according to the report, was there was a shift change between the airfield maintenance crew scheduled for 6:30 p.m.

"Approaching the end of each shift, there is a period of time when the departing crew is preparing the equipment for use by the next crew," said the report.

"During this changeover period, the airfield may be unattended for up to 30 minutes."

In addition to the checklist, all supervisors will also be using the same weather forecasts that refreshautomatically on tablets mounted in their vehicles.

In July, the airport also installed an updated runway weather information system, which doubles the number of weather sensors available on the airport's runways. Chase said this upgrade was already in the works before the March 4 incident.

"We can have sudden drops in temperature, changes in precipitation, so it does give us an additional data point to inform the runway surface condition reports that we prepare," she said.