TORONTO - More small airplane crashes are likely around the country's busiest airport if Toronto's increasingly cramped airspace isn't redesigned and those pilots continue to rely on their eyesight to avoid collisions, said a report into a fatal mid-air collision of two light airplanes released Wednesday.
The Transportation Safety Board report is calling on Transport Canada to take steps to "substantially reduce the risk of collision'' in the busy airspace near Toronto's Lester B. Pearson International Airport.
The design is such that small planes that want to steer clear of controlled airport traffic are funnelled into a small pocket of airspace, said Don Enns, regional manager of air investigations.
"We have reduced the available airspace for these to a point where the airplanes don't have a lot of room to manoeuvre,'' he said. "As they are flying through, there is that risk that they are going to collide.''
This risk is growing ever greater as traffic continues to grow and pilots of small planes continue to rely on their eyesight as their "primary means of defence,'' the report stated.
The report examined the August 2006 collision of two light airplanes near Caledon, Ont., west of Toronto, which killed three people. Safety board investigators found that crew performance didn't play a role in the accident, nor did weather conditions at the time.
"The conditions here were ideal,'' Enns said. "This is the first time we've seen a collision where one of the contributing factors was the airspace design.''
Transport Canada should change the vertical structure of the controlled airspace around Pearson airport so that small planes have more room to avoid each other, the report recommended.
It's also time Transport Canada, in co-operation with the flight industry, examined the available technological solutions so pilots of light airplanes don't have to rely on spotting other planes with their own eyes, the report recommended.
While large commercial aircraft are equipped with anti-collision technology and generally fly in airspace that is air-traffic controlled, smaller aircraft tend to rely on the pilot's eyesight.
But pilots can have difficulty spotting other planes because of visual challenges that can arise in the air, the report said.
When eyes aren't tracking a moving target, the report said it's difficult for people to smoothly scan "featureless'' airspace. This can "decrease visual acuity significantly, leaving large gaps in the distant field of vision,'' investigators said.
Blind spots are also common and "can lead to serious consequences for pilots, including collisions,'' said the report.
"The board is concerned that the risk of collisions will remain . . . if we do not take steps toward developing collision avoidance equipment which is usable in a small, general aviation aircraft,'' Enns said.
Transport Canada has 90 days to respond to the recommendations. A spokeswoman said the ministry "supports the intent of the recommendation made by the Transportation Safety Board'' and officials are reviewing the report.
