Like the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), Canada’s Transportation Safety Board (TSB) posts an annual “Watchlist” spotlighting its top concerns. This year’s list, its 12th annual offering, cites runway incursions and overruns among eight overall safety shortcomings that “require government and industry attention [and] that are the result of hundreds of investigations.”
The TSB wrote, “Despite millions of successful movements on Canadian runways each year, airplanes sometimes go past the end of a runway surface during landings or rejected takeoffs. While some action has been taken since this issue was added to the Watchlist in 2010, the number of runway overruns in Canada has remained constant since 2005.” The board added, “Since 2005, there have been on average 9.7 runway overrun occurrences per year at Canadian airports, of which 7.5 occur during landing. Additionally, from 2005 to 2019 the TSB investigated 19 such occurrences and issued four recommendations to Canadian authorities, of which three remain active and one is closed.”
TSB chair Kathy Fox said, “Some of these issues have been on the Watchlist for far too long, reflecting decades-old safety deficiencies. While some steps have been taken to address these, more simply needs to be done.”
Though the TSB did note that there has not been a recent collision involving a runway incursion—or “wrong-surface” transgression—“The rate of runway incursions has doubled in the past 12 years, and this issue is a global concern. The potential consequences of such a collision could be catastrophic.”
