Toronto airport crash should be a wakeup call here

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Aviation officials and air travellers are no doubt breathing sighs of relief after the Delta Flight 4819 crash on Feb. 17 at Toronto Pearson International Airport. While 21 people were injured, all survived.

Those injured and rushed to hospitals have since been released, and a lengthy investigation into the cause of the crash and response continues. You may be inclined to think, “All’s well that ends well,” and continue believing Canadian airports are as safe as possible.

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They are not.

It was nothing short of a miracle that no one was trapped and no interior fire occurred. Shortfalls in Canadian Aviation Regulations (CARs) have left most of the nation’s airports unprepared for immediate passenger rescue and interior fire suppression.

Canadians cannot rely on luck when the next airline incident occurs. We must be prepared, and that requires bold steps to improve safety.

CARs, which govern Canada’s airports, fall far short of Aircraft Rescue and Fire Fighting (ARFF) standards set by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), a world leader in aviation and air passenger safety headquartered in Montreal.

Most Canadian airports only meet the minimum requirements for ARFF protection, leaving firefighters at several airports ill-positioned or improperly resourced to respond quickly to an interior aircraft fire or rescue trapped passengers.

International ARFF standards require airport firefighters to perform rescues and specify that they reach all points on all operational runways within three minutes. Both the Canadian and U.S. military have adopted this model.

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Contrary to ICAO, the CARs omit rescue as a primary objective for airport firefighters. The regulation lacks specific personnel requirements for simultaneous firefighting and rescue operations and only mandates airport fire resources to reach the midpoint of the farthest runway within three minutes. Canadian airports depend on municipal fire departments to supplement resources, which may be 10 minutes away. These departments can be further delayed while responding to calls in their jurisdictions, and lack the specialized training for aircraft firefighting.

Ottawa’s Macdonald-Cartier International Airport is one of those airports. Despite serving more than 4.5 million passengers in 2024, it lacks the personnel required to perform rescues. Its emergency response plan relies heavily on backup from Ottawa firefighters, who may be as much as 20 minutes away — far too long when passengers are trapped inside a burning fuselage.

In December 2023, the House of Commons adopted Motion M-96 in response to lobbying by the International Association of Fire Fighters. It calls on the government of Canada to bring CARs in line with ICAO standards. Among other improvements, it mandates rescue as a required function of airport firefighters and ensures that they can reach all areas of operational runways within three minutes.

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The motion is currently pending approval by the minister of Transportation, and we urge swift action on this matter.

Cost cannot be the overriding factor when it comes to safety. Introducing a modest passenger fee, scalable based on airport size and category, could effectively address this challenge. A modest ticket surcharge of less than $2 per passenger could enable our nation’s airports to meet international standards.

While most air travellers are unaware that Canada’s aviation regulations fall short of international safety standards, many foreign governments are fully aware.

In 2023, the Biden administration insisted that more firefighter resources be added to meet international standards during the president’s trip through Ottawa International. Other foreign governments have also insisted on temporarily boosting safety procedures when their heads of state have flown through Canadian airports.

If the current CARs are unacceptable for foreign leaders, they should be unacceptable for all air travellers. Every passenger deserves confidence that Canadian airports have the proper number of specially trained firefighters ready to respond quickly and effectively in an emergency.

Ottawa-based Carmine Santoro is the Assistant to the General President for Canadian Operations for the International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF).

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