How Toronto Pearson International Airport crews train to recover damaged aircraft

It has been nearly two decades since a major airplane crash or recovery effort has been needed at Toronto Pearson International Airport, but multiple entities have gathered to refine and practice their response procedures.

CityNews visited the Fire and Emergency Services Training Institute (FESTI) grounds on the western edge of the airport on Tuesday where the Greater Toronto Airports Authority (GTAA), Air Canada and other entities used a retired Boeing 737 to simulate a gear collapse, and the airplane leaving the asphalt to get stuck in the grass.

“If it doesn’t happen very often, you don’t get to practice it. So this is an important thing to practice, to be able to figure out the safety flaws that you may have in the operation of lifting an airplane,” Gilbert Skerlan, a GTAA operations manager, said.

“Each aircraft has [its] own aircraft recovery manual and deciphering it, doing the right weight and balance so you can lift it without it becoming a problem. Once it’s airborne, it becomes a big sail and can move around.

“These are all the things you have to practice, tethering it down to the ground, lifting it slowly, the airport authority would come in and build roadways if we had to supply manpower, get parts, lumber, you name it, to do what we can to help the airlines do what they do.”

Skerlan said it was in 2007 when response crews had to recover an airplane after it went off a runway.

In 2005, Air France Flight 358 overran one of the runways at Toronto Pearson airport. No one died in the crash but 12 people were seriously injured during the collision and the evacuation.

Throughout the years that followed, approximately 1,000 to 1,400 flights have departed and arrived at the airport on a daily basis without another notable collision.

Under the current procedures, if an airplane leaves the runway or a paved surface then the airport’s fire department is required to get to the crash site within two minutes if there’s a risk of it catching fire. The main focus will be on ensuring everyone is accounted for while also working to contain fire and environmental spill risks.

Before an aircraft recovery could occur, investigations would need to happen by police, the Transportation Safety Board of Canada, the coroner’s office (only if there were one or more fatalities), the applicable insurance companies, the airline, and potentially other entities.

Skerlan said a determination on the aircraft’s value, and the cost and feasibility of repairs need to be made in order to dictate the recovery efforts.

“These aircraft when they’re moved, if they’re stuck in the mud, they have to measure all the loads that are put onto it before they can pull it out. Otherwise, it won’t be insured and it would probably cost a lot more to go through the process of doing non-destructive testing to different parts of the aircraft,” he said.

It falls to the GTAA to create a buffer space for crews to bring in cranes and work vehicles. Typical major aircraft recoveries could take 24 or more hours.

Toronto Pearson airport crews, companies participate in exercise

Carlos Verdugo is an aircraft recovery manager with Air Canada, which can be contracted by other companies to do recovery efforts. He was a leader of the exercise on Tuesday and said the first task was to address the stability issues of the airplane.

“The majority of times, the aircraft is not really damaged by these events and we can recover the aircraft without any other damage which is really our purpose to be able to recover an aircraft without inducing more damage,” he said.

Crews needed to strap it to help keep it under control. The airplane was lifted gradually by a heavy-duty crane in order to install a jack under the wing leaning against the ground which is needed to restore a collapsed landing gear.

The second part of the exercise saw the airplane move backward and placed into grass and mud. To remove the airplane, industrial mats were placed around its wheels while sensors helped assess weight and other factors. After that information was calculated, a system of straps and a tractor were able to move the airplane.

Verdugo said exercises like these help build relationships and make potential recoveries easier. Representatives from WestJet and Lufthansa were also present at Toronto Pearson airport.

“We get to mingle with the people who would actually respond to incidents, so having those contacts, those connections, those face-to-faces [are] incredible,” he said.

Over the coming days, all the participants were set to talk about what they learned, what went right and wrong, and what else needs to be in place should a similar incident happens.

Meanwhile, Verdugo and Skerlan said there should be confidence in air travel despite the scale and nature of the training exercise.

“Aviation is one of the safest forms of transportation in the world,” Verdugo said.

“We’re already qualified to understand our aircraft and all its capabilities and our limitations with these aircraft. Above and beyond that, our people get specific training in different parts of the world by different providers.”

“It is a safe way to operate and everybody here, all these … aeronautical maintenance engineers, they’re all trying to keep us safe in the air,” Skerlan added.