TSB warns of more helicopter crashes unless training, instrumentation are improved

Nearly three years after a 2021 helicopter crash killed three people near Resolute Bay, a Transportation Safety Board investigator warns accidents will continue to happen unless Transport Canada implements recommendations the safety board has been making for more than 30 years.

“The important thing to remember is that every accident is the result of a series of factors. This pilot was doing the best that he could with the tools that he had,” Daryl Collins, a TSB regional investigator, said in an interview Thursday, after the safety board released its report into the crash.

Its recommendations include calls for Transport Canada, the federal transportation department, to ensure commercial helicopter operators have the skills needed to recover from situations where they can’t see the ground due to weather conditions.

When pilots lose visibility due to snowy terrain and weather, it’s known as an “inadvertent flight into instrument meteorological conditions” or “inadvertent IMC.”

That was the case in the 2021 crash, the Transportation Safety Board said.

On April 25, 2021, an Airbus AS350 helicopter owned by Great Slave Helicopters took off at about 3:45 p.m. from a remote camp on Russell Island flying to Resolute Bay. It was reported missing at 4:45 p.m.

A map shows the path of a helicopter that crashed near Resolute Bay in April 2021, after leaving a remote camp on Russell Island. Three people died in the crash. (Map courtesy of Transportation Safety Board of Canada)

Markus Dyck, a senior polar bear biologist with the Government of Nunavut, and two employees of the Yellowknife-based helicopter company were found dead at the crash site.

Low visibility, snow squalls and featureless terrain led to dangerous conditions for the pilot and his two passengers, according to the safety board’s report.

It cited the pilot’s lack of training in how to recover from a complete loss of visibility in extreme weather conditions as well as a lack of sufficient instrumentation. Neither are required under current regulations, the report said.

The flight operated under visual flight rules, meaning the pilot was to “maintain a visual reference to the ground and navigate the helicopter using external references,” Collins said in a news conference where the TSB presented recommendations from its investigation.

The safety board said the pilot entered a region where he couldn’t see the ground or the horizon due to the snowy terrain and prevailing weather conditions — or an inadvertent IMC.

An investigator’s photograph shows the site where a helicopter crashed near Resolute Bay in April 2021, killing three people. (Photo courtesy of Transportation Safety Board of Canada)

He “likely” turned the craft 180 degrees to obtain a visual reference. That led to an unplanned descent and crashing the helicopter, the report said.

Transport Canada regulations instruct commercial helicopter pilots to “avoid at all costs” flying into those conditions. They are trained to assess routes and avoid entering those conditions. But that’s not always possible, as was the case in the 2021 crash, the report said.

Compounding the problem is that approach means pilots will fly slower and lower to avoid inadvertent IMCs, increasing the risk of an accident, Collins said.

Since 1990, the safety board has been recommending verification of pilot training in basic instrument flying skills, and for all commercial helicopters to be equipped with instruments that are critical in “flat light and whiteout conditions,” the report said. Some progress has been made on the former, but none has been made on the latter.

In the 2021 case, with no visual reference and no instrumentation to guide him or even alert him to his altitude over the terrain, “the pilot had no way of being warned of the impending collision with terrain that occurred shortly after,” the report said.

The report noted that risk in whiteout conditions is well known. A total of 13 prior investigations identified the same problem.

In 2002, after a series of similar accidents, the United States implemented much of the same regulations the TSB is advocating for now.