Canada's system for monitoring airline safety has major flaws that could result in more accidents unless improvements are made, the government's spending watchdog said on Tuesday.
Auditor General Michael Ferguson said that although the transport department's regulations call for aviation companies to be inspected every year, about 70 percent of them were not investigated in the 2010-11 fiscal year.
"Transport Canada is not adequately managing the risks associated with its civil aviation oversight," he said.
"The significant weaknesses that need to be addressed involve how the department plans, conducts, and reports on its surveillance activities," he wrote in a report.
In 2009 and 2010, the total number of accidents was the lowest recorded in a 10-year span in Canada. The last serious accident occurred last August when a First Air jet crashed in the northern Arctic, killing 12 people.
Ferguson said that the International Civil Aviation Organization has forecast that the current volume of air traffic in North America could more than double by 2025.
"If nothing else changes, this increase in volume could lead to more accidents. The department recognizes that it will have to do more just to keep the accident rate per revenue-generating passenger mile travelled in Canada at current levels," he said.
Canada moved to a new system of surveillance in 2008 that shifted the focus away from inspecting aircraft and more on ensuring airlines were able to comply with safety rules.
This has meant that Transport Canada has had to work out which airlines might be more at risk. Ferguson, though, found that the department was missing key information for most large air carriers, maintenance organizations and large airports.
"The problem is particularly acute with aviation companies and large airports that were not inspected in the previous year," he said.
"Without complete and reliable risk profiles to conduct risk assessments, the department may not inspect the aviation companies that present the highest risks to aviation safety."
In 2010-11, the department only examined 67 percent of the operations it had itself identified as higher risk.
No one from the office of Transport Minister Denis Lebel was immediately available for comment.
(Reporting by David Ljunggren; Editing by Peter Galloway)
Reuters
