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Insufficient emergency coaching, crumbling runways and obstructed security lights had been among the many points inspectors discovered at a few of Alberta’s smaller airports, present latest Transport Canada paperwork.
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The inspections had been performed all through 2019 and 2020. Copies of the next stories had been acquired by Postmedia by an entry to data request.
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When inspectors confirmed as much as Lloydminster Airport they discovered a runway that had buckled in some locations and was crumbling in others, creating a security danger.
“A Transport Canada inspection of Runway 08/26 revealed runway degradation and floor irregularities that will adversely have an effect on the take-off or touchdown of an airplane by inflicting extreme bouncing, pitching, vibration or different difficulties within the management of the airplane,” an inspector’s report reads.
Different points across the runway turned obvious as nicely with inspectors discovering the shoulder of the strip was not flush with the runway as required.
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Runway lights — designed to assist information pilots in direction of the touchdown space — had been additionally discovered to be “not mounted sufficiently low to the bottom,” mentioned the report.
‘Obscured in snow’
Lighting was additionally a problem at Okotoks Air Ranch Airport when inspectors visited there in February 2020.
They discovered a few of the airport’s blue taxiway lights had been damaged. And, some wing bar lights — used to light up the beginning of the runway the place it’s secure to land — had been misaligned and “not within the route of method to the runway.”
Snow removing was additionally a problem, with some security lights “partially or totally obstructed” after being buried in snow.
A runway exit signal was noticed to be “utterly obscured in snow.”
Inspectors additionally famous snowbanks and windrows in varied places alongside the runway strip in addition to a big tarp “mendacity within the snow throughout the runway strip floor, presenting a international object injury danger.”
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‘Wouldn’t know what to do’
Okotoks was certainly one of a number of airports the place inspectors recognized points round coaching, together with for emergency conditions.
The person inspectors spoke with at an earlier go to in December 2019 “was not certified to show human and organizational elements.”
“Via interviews and sampling it was found that, on the time of inspection, there was no personnel on web site that would show ample supervision and management to handle any emergency on the airport,” the report states.
“When requested about vitality response procedures … airport supervisor, or designate, indicated that he had by no means seen the airport emergency response plan and wouldn’t know what to do within the occasion of an emergency.”
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A November 2019 inspection of the Grande Prairie Airport discovered that officers there couldn’t say for positive if sure kinds of coaching had taken place.
At Rainbow Lake Airport, inspectors had been involved with workers failing to warn passengers to not feed wildlife, probably encouraging animals to come back too near the power.
“The Rainbow Lake Airport didn’t promote to the customers of the airport the coverage that prohibits the feeding of wildlife and the publicity of meals wastes.”
The paperwork additionally embody inspection information for airports in Fort McMurray, Fort Chipewyan and Parkland.
The province’s two largest airports — Edmonton Worldwide and Calgary Worldwide — weren’t included.
Twitter @ByMatthewBlack