Evidence of meeting #5 for Transport, Infrastructure and Communities in the 43rd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was transport.

A video is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Kathleen Fox  Chair, Canadian Transportation Accident Investigation and Safety Board
Sylvain Alarie  Professional Engineer, As an Individual
Gilles Primeau  Professional Engineer, As an Individual
Natacha Van Themsche  Director, Air Investigations, Canadian Transportation Accident Investigation and Safety Board
Jim Quick  President and Chief Executive Officer, Aerospace Industries Association of Canada
Jodi Diamant  Chief Engineer, Airworthiness & Certification, Pratt & Whitney Canada, As an Individual
David Curtis  President and Chief Executive Officer, Viking Air Limited, Longview Aviation Capital Corp.
Steven Bruce  Director, Design and Certification, Viking Air Limited, Longview Aviation Capital Corp.
Michael Deer  Airworthiness Specialist, Bell Textron Canada Limited
David Joseph Watson  Manager, Airworthiness and Air Safety, De Havilland Aircraft of Canada Limited, Longview Aviation Capital Corp.

4:10 p.m.

NDP

Taylor Bachrach NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

4:10 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Vance Badawey

You have two more minutes.

4:10 p.m.

NDP

Taylor Bachrach NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC

I have a question for Ms. Fox.

You mentioned two other incidents, the Swissair crash and the incident involving the Sikorsky. You mentioned that subsequent to that, the TSB issued communications that related to the certification process. Were those communications integrated into the future certification of those types of aircraft?

4:10 p.m.

Chair, Canadian Transportation Accident Investigation and Safety Board

Kathleen Fox

With respect to the Swissair accident, a little less than half of the 23 recommendations related to certification and the flammability standards. Most of those were adopted by industry, not only in the U.S. and in Canada but also in Europe. The material that was in use in that aircraft is no longer permitted. Many of those recommendations, then, were implemented.

With respect to the certification processes used for the Sikorsky 92A, unfortunately the action that the board wanted has not yet been taken, and so that helicopter, for example, cannot fly for at least 30 minutes in the event of a loss of lubricant from the main gear.

4:15 p.m.

NDP

Taylor Bachrach NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC

Is it fair to say, then, that your concerns in that regard are outstanding?

4:15 p.m.

Chair, Canadian Transportation Accident Investigation and Safety Board

Kathleen Fox

Yes, in the case of those particular recommendations, they remain outstanding and active.

4:15 p.m.

NDP

Taylor Bachrach NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

4:15 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Vance Badawey

Thank you, Mr. Bachrach and Ms. Fox.

I'll go to Mr. Davidson now.

The floor is yours.

March 10th, 2020 / 4:15 p.m.

Conservative

Scot Davidson Conservative York—Simcoe, ON

Thank you, witnesses, for appearing.

Again, my condolences to the families.

I'm going to look at the airplane itself first. I'll ask the engineers this question. Would you say the 737 Max is a stable or unstable airplane? That's a big question.

4:15 p.m.

Professional Engineer, As an Individual

Gilles Primeau

Are you referring to the location of the engines and how they can pull it up?

4:15 p.m.

Conservative

Scot Davidson Conservative York—Simcoe, ON

Yes. There have been significant changes compared with the NG model.

4:15 p.m.

Professional Engineer, As an Individual

Gilles Primeau

Oh, my gosh. When they found they needed to expand the envelope of protection from the MCAS at low speed, that's when everyone should have stopped and said, “Wait a minute.”

Fly-by-wire aircraft can control elevators to control the pitch of the aircraft with finesse. They can gradually, through the control laws, keep the airplane stable. If you don't have a fly-by-wire aircraft like the 737, and the only pitch control surface you can control electrically is the horizontal stabilizer, and you have this actuator that moves it to, say, a quarter-degree per second, that's all you have to work with.

4:15 p.m.

Conservative

Scot Davidson Conservative York—Simcoe, ON

Yes.

4:15 p.m.

Professional Engineer, As an Individual

Gilles Primeau

You need to be extremely careful when you're going to use such a high-gain surface to do the same type of finesse that you'd do if you had a fly-by-wire bird.

4:15 p.m.

Conservative

Scot Davidson Conservative York—Simcoe, ON

There have been some wiring issues that have come to light. Given what you've been studying and looking at, I wonder if you could comment on whether the wiring should be bundled or split, or if you've looked at that.

4:15 p.m.

Professional Engineer, As an Individual

Gilles Primeau

Yes, well, that's part of the HSTS modernization that would have to happen.

Typically, we do what's called a particular risk analysis—engine rotor burst, APU rotor burst on the tail of the aircraft in this case—and we say, “Well, you have a blade from that rotor that's going to go and snap through your harness.” That's why you need to separate some signals to make sure that you're not going to take out all the redundancies when there are.... On the HSTS for the 737 Max, there's only one motor to actuate that actuator, so they probably wanted to separate some wires on the connector to make sure that if you had chafing, you wouldn't be shorting two wires that could command it to go full nose-down or full nose-up.

4:15 p.m.

Conservative

Scot Davidson Conservative York—Simcoe, ON

How about lightning protection? Is that something they're looking at, do you know, on the engine mount, on the APU?

4:15 p.m.

Professional Engineer, As an Individual

Gilles Primeau

That's typically done. That should be done by default. You may be referring to the 787.

4:15 p.m.

Conservative

Scot Davidson Conservative York—Simcoe, ON

There are a lot of things that should be done by default, but I don't think some things were done here. Is that the case?

4:15 p.m.

Professional Engineer, As an Individual

Gilles Primeau

Well, on the 787, for instance, it came out. Well, it's a composite wing. You don't do lightning protection on fuel tanks the same way when they're built out of composites. There's a different rule. I worked on that on the MRJ in Seattle, peripherally, and on the Global 7500.

You know, some managers sometimes can overrule the engineer who's out in the trench and saying, “We need to do this.” If the manager hasn't evolved and hasn't followed the technology that's been evolving, he's going to overrule someone, and you're going to end up with systems in the field that don't comply, necessarily, to the latest regulations.

4:15 p.m.

Conservative

Scot Davidson Conservative York—Simcoe, ON

Right.

Obviously, given the scrutiny, let's say, of this aircraft, if it is approved to fly again, do you feel that for pilots this should be a separate type rating on their licences to instill that confidence, given the changes from the NG model? Some would argue that these aren't significant enough to warrant that, but in this case, for the public to have trust, would pilots have a separate type rating for this aircraft given those changes, because it does act slightly differently?

4:20 p.m.

Professional Engineer, As an Individual

Gilles Primeau

It would be a huge uphill battle. I would fight for making sure that they get excellent simulator training. If you want to achieve something, maybe that's what we should be aiming at.

4:20 p.m.

Professional Engineer, As an Individual

Sylvain Alarie

It goes with the type rating.

4:20 p.m.

Professional Engineer, As an Individual

Gilles Primeau

Yes, on the type rating, the airlines try to maintain that common type rating as much as they can.

4:20 p.m.

Conservative

Scot Davidson Conservative York—Simcoe, ON

Right.