Dozens of employees combed Kelowna airport’s tarmac Friday morning looking for any debris that could potentially cause millions of dollars of damage to a plane.
“It can become a projectile and hurt people on the ground, cause millions in dollars of damage and even worse, cause major injuries,” said Sean Parker, Kelowna airport’s emergency operations and readiness manager.
One of the most common items found on the runway are broken zippers from luggage, he added.
“That’s a metallic object that can cause damage to humans and aircraft,” he said.
Canadian Airports Safety Week, which is held from Sept. 17 to 21, is trying to raise awareness about healthy and safe work practices among airport employees.
The airport is expected to hit more than two-million passengers this year, up from just below 1.9 million last year, Sam Samaddar, Kelowna International Airport’s director, said.
“We had our busiest month ever in the history of the airport with over 200,000 passengers in August despite the smoke and everything,” he said.
“And in July, we were up about 14 per cent over last year as well, so we’re seeing very, very positive growth.”
But acts of nature still present their own safety challenges at the airport. Smoke delayed hundreds of passengers in August because of poor visibility.
Parker said flooding also has the potential to create problems at the airport.
“We do a lot of work to mitigate the potential for flooding because our runway has a creek running beside it, so we put a lot of effort into ensuring that we never get any water on our runway surfaces,” he said. “The biggest problem with flooding is that it also attracts birds where aircraft are flying.”
The most common safety incidents at the airport usually happen in winter when people slip and fall, Parker said.
Aircraft-related safety incidents are minimal, he added.