Hanging between two aircraft on the tarmac at Pearson : the TSB is continuing to assess the event

AFP

Michel Bellemare

Saturday, January 6, 2018 19:51

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Saturday, January 6, 2018 19:51

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Experts of the Office of the transportation safety board of Canada returned to Toronto’s Pearson airport, Saturday, to continue their work of collecting information about the skirmish between the two planes on Friday night on the tarmac near an airport terminal.

• READ ALSO : battle between two aircraft on the tarmac of Pearson : the passengers unharmed, but a member of the emergency services rushed to the hospital

A spokesman for the TSB, Chris Krepski, told QMI Agency that investigators had already gone to the airport Friday evening “to consider the two planes as well as the premises, and to examine witnesses” and that other interviews had taken place on Saturday.

The event is at the stage of information gathering and evaluation, said Mr. Krepski, stating that the TSB was going to decide in a few days if a more thorough investigation would be conducted.

At around 18: 15, Friday, a plane of the airline company Sunwing, which was moved by a tractor by a ground crew, came into collision with a device of WestJet, which was locked to a gate of the terminal 3 and was waiting for instructions to proceed to the disembarkation of its passengers.

The plane of WestJet – who was coming back from Cancun, had 168 passengers and six crew members on board, while Sunwing was empty, with the exception of an employee of a company of ground-handling services that was in the cockpit for the operations of displacement of the device.

The two planes involved are Boeing 737.

By retreating from the gate, the plane Sunwing has hung in a wing of the device of WestJet. A fire is then declared in the tail of the Boeing Sunwing, but was quickly extinguished by emergency crews from the airport. “It is a kind of generator in the tail of the plane that caught fire,” said Chris Krepski.

Reacting to the situation, WestJet has completed the evacuation of its passengers using slides of an emergency. They were conducted in safety to the inside of the terminal and were able to proceed with customs.

The authorities have reported no injuries among the passengers and crew of WestJet.

However, passengers interviewed by the toronto media have said that people panicked when they saw flames and smoke coming from the plane, Sunwing, adding that the evacuation instructions given by the crew were not clear.

The TSB, which has not commented on or confirmed these comments, will evaluate, however, if evacuation procedures were followed and if they were sufficient, as it did each time an aircraft is evacuated.

Only one person – a fireman from the emergency team of the airport – was injured and taken to the hospital in the wake of this event. The airport has not specified the nature of his injuries, but said, Saturday, that the fireman in question had been discharged from the hospital.

Pierre Payette, vice-president, operations of Swissport Canada Handling Inc. at Pearson airport, has confirmed to various media that his company, which was responsible for moving the aircraft to Sunwing, regretted the incident and that it was collaborating with the TSB.