Safety incidents on Canadian runways are rising, according to a new report from the Transportation Safety Board of Canada, whose chairman says complex operating environments at major airports such as Toronto Pearson are a contributing factor.
Board chair Yoan Marier told The Canadian Press the increase stems partly from growing air traffic, a shortage of controllers, and increasingly intricate ground operations at large airports.
“Pearson is a very complex operating environment,” Marier said. “There are a lot of things happening at the same time. The layout is also very complex, so pilots who are not used to operating there can have issues.
“Even an incursion that doesn’t initially cause a risk of collision, it’s still a big deal.”
TSB data shows that so-called runway incursions — a plane, vehicle or person being on or near a runway when they shouldn’t be — reached a record 639 in 2024, the latest full year of available statistics.
However, the number of incidents categorized as high-risk has fallen to an average of about one a year since 2018. Numbers were much higher in the preceding decade.
The issue of runway safety garnered renewed attention last month after an Air Canada Express jet plowed into a fire truck at LaGuardia Airport, killing both pilots and sending more than 40 people to hospital.
While no recent collision has stemmed from a runway incursion in Canada, the risk “remains elevated until stronger defences are in place,” the safety board said on its website.
Not only are runway incidents on the rise, but so is the rate — the percentage of runway movements that see an incursion — which roughly doubled between 2010 and 2024.
“If traffic increases, you would expect the number of incursions to increase as well. But what’s worrying to us at the TSB is also the increasing rate,” Marier said. He has called for better signage and lighting as well as broader uptake of technology to keep pilots and controllers more attuned to movements on the tarmac.
Marier stressed that flying continues to be among the safest modes of transportation and high-risk runway incidents are very rare.
“But it only takes one,” he said.
A runway incursion can involve vehicles ranging from a fire truck to a runway sweeper on the hunt for debris to a plane that “sticks its nose a little too close to the runway,” said Benoit Gauthier, a former pilot with Air Canada.
“It usually has something to do with communication,” he said. “It’s very fragile, in my opinion.”
The ongoing shortage of air traffic controllers adds to safety concerns. Nav Canada, the privately run non-profit corporation responsible for training and employing controllers, estimates the shortage at about 200.
An aging workforce, rising flight activity and the long training timeline of more than two years complicates filling that gap. The process to become an air traffic professional is among the longest in aviation. The role demands between 10 and 27 months of training. Parental leave or a move to a new airport mean months of retraining.
In 2023, the International Air Transport Association called out air traffic control organizations in North America, including Nav Canada, for staffing shortages that caused what it called “unacceptable delays and disruptions” to flights.
