An overemphasis on assessing aircraft operators’ safety management systems (SMS) at the expense of enforcing regulatory compliance is creating new risks that unsafe conditions and practices might go unnoticed, the Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) says.
The agency cautioned that the risk of aviation accidents could increase if Transport Canada (TC) “does not adopt a balanced approach that combines inspections for compliance with audits of safety management processes.”
The TSB made the observations in its final report on an Aug. 19, 2013, accident involving a Buffalo Airways Douglas DC-3C shortly after takeoff from Yellowknife Airport in Canada’s Northwest Territories for a scheduled passenger flight to Hay River. None of the 24 people in the DC-3 was injured in the emergency gear-up landing, which followed the discovery of a fire in the right engine.
In the report, issued in April, the TSB said that a fatigue crack led to the failure of a cylinder in the righ…
