Travellers are vulnerable to a major aviation accident under Transport Canada's current safety regime, inspectors say, lamenting that they scrutinize "more paperwork than airplanes" these days.
A new survey of Canada's professional aviation inspectors, to be released Thursday, found 85 per cent of respondents believe air travellers have been exposed to higher risk because of Transport Canada's transition to safety management systems, or SMS.
The head of the Canadian Federal Pilots Association, which represents licensed pilots who work as Transport Canada inspectors, said Transport Minister Lisa Raitt should see the results as a "major red flag" and cautioned that the next crash could be in Toronto or some other major Canadian city.
Since 2008, the federal department has required air operators whose planes carry 20 or more passengers to develop their own in-house safety management systems. Under the regime, inspectors effectively became system evaluators who sometimes conduct traditional audits.
"We're getting further and further away from the front-line, and our information is coming third-hand," said Captain Daniel Slunder, president of the pilots association, which co-sponsored the survey with the Union of Canadian Transportation Employees.
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