Airliner touched down with snow-removal equipment on airstrip

A recent incident at the Sault Ste. Marie Airport, in which an airplane landed while snow-removal equipment was on the runway, will not be investigated, says Canada's Transportation Safety Board (TSB).

Ground crews at the Sault Ste. Marie Airport were clearing snow from Runway 30 during a snow squall just after 1 a.m. On Jan. 6 when an Air Canada Jazz flight made an unannounced landing, said TSB senior regional investigator Ken Webster.

The tower at the Sault Ste. Marie is not manned during those early morning hours, said Webster, requiring incoming aircraft to communicate directly with ground crews.

“It turns out one of the radios on the aircraft was not transmitting or receiving as it should have, so this information wasn’t received by the snow-removal vehicles on the runway,” Webster said.

Terry Bos, manager of the Sault Ste. Marie Airport, said when planes arrive after hours and the tower is closed, pilots are expected to use mandatory frequencies to contact crew on the ground.

“(The pilots) are supposed to broadcast their intent to land so that our guys or anybody else on the field knows they are landing and can get off the field,” said Bos.

About half an hour before the Air Canada Jazz arrival, said Bos, a SunWing flight had landed on the same runway.

When the Air Canada Jazz flight was unable to reach ground crew at Sault Ste. Marie, they contacted the SunWing flight on the ground, which told them they had just landed and the runway had recently been cleared of snow.

Bos said one piece of equipment was off to the side of Runway 30, while a second vehicle was near the end of the runway.

“(The airplane) missed all of our vehicles. There obviously was no incident, no injuries or cause for concern but obviously it’s not the normal practice to land an aircraft when there is still equipment on the runway,” said Bos.

“With our equipment on the field — had they been in any different position and the plane had actually hit a piece of our equipment — it would have been a very bad incident,” added Bos.

Bos said his expectation was for the TSB to investigate and make recommendations to prevent similar incidents from happening in the future.

While the Air Canada Jazz transmissions did not reach the ground crew, Webster said an attempt was made by the airplane’s crew to make their intention to land known.

“If you think you are transmitting and there is no answer, you don’t know if anybody is out there,” said Webster.

The TSB will not be investigating or making a report on the incident.

“As far as we are concerned, we are not pursuing it any further,” said Webster.

Air Canada Express, which operated the Jazz flight from Toronto to Sault Ste. Marie, declined an opportunity to comment for this story.

The TSB would not say how many people were aboard the airliner at the time of the incident, and Air Canada Express did not immediately answer that question when asked.