Rise in airplane ‘incidents’ in Canada due to federal cuts, pilots say

OTTAWA – A national pilots association is raising alarm bells over new accident numbers showing a year-over-year jump in incidents involving commercial airliners.

The Transportation Safety Board says the increase in airline incidents overall is partly due to a higher number of flight training accidents.

The Canadian Federal Pilots Association argues the jump in incidents can be traced to federal government cutbacks in oversight.

New figures today from the Transportation Safety Board show that there were 94 incidents in 2017 involving commercial aircraft operators, a jump from the 63 recorded in 2016 and higher than the five-year average of 79 incidents.

Large passenger airliners were involved in nine of those incidents last year.

The board also says the first known collision between a commercial aircraft and a drone was among the 921 overall aviation incidents last year.

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