Less than 18 hours after Air Canada (AC) Flight 624 crashed and skidded on its belly to a halt at Halifax’s Stanfield International Airport, the Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) announced that the aircraft had hit an antenna array about 335 metres away from the runway before hitting the ground.

The plane, an Airbus 320, had left Toronto at about 9:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time on March 28, carrying 133 passengers and five crew members. At about 12:43 a.m. Halifax time, the plane smashed through the array, which tore off its main landing gear, one of the engines and the nose cone while damaging a wing, the TSB announced at a press conference on March 29 at the Alt Hotel at Stanfield.

Mike Cunningham, the TSB’s regional manager of air investigations, said at the conference that the passengers were “pretty lucky” that the incident hadn’t turned out much worse.

“This type of event is on the TSB’s watch list, and so it’s a very great concern to us,” Cunningham added. “We will be putting our maximum effort into determining what happened.”

There were no fatalities in the accident, but 23 people were sent to local hospitals with non-life-threatening injuries, according to an AC press release sent out after the occurrence. An update later in the day confirmed that 18 of the people who’d been sent to hospital had since been released, while AC had sent additional management personnel to the airport to assist passengers and their families.

“We at Air Canada are greatly relieved that no one was critically injured,” Klaus Goersch, AC’s executive vice president and chief operating officer, said in a press statement on March 29. “Yet we fully appreciate this has been a very unsettling experience for our customers and their families, as well as our employees, and we are focused on caring for all those affected.

“We will also fully cooperate with the Transportation Safety Board as it begins an investigation to determine the cause,” Goersch added.

After the incident, the TSB dispatched a team of investigators to the Stanfield runway where it had occurred. The Board has already recovered the cockpit recorder and the voice data recorder and sent them to Ottawa for analysis. According to media reports, aircraft manufacturer Airbus has also sent staff to investigate, while the RCMP has deployed drones to shoot aerial video footage of the accident scene.

At the Stanfield news conference, Cunningham said that the TSB would not rule out weather as a cause of the crash. The plane was approaching Halifax in the middle of a snowstorm, although Goersch reportedly told a news conference afterwards that the conditions had been safe and appropriate for landing. Cunningham also said that the weather conditions had been “well within the legal landing limits” at the time.

“Obviously, it’s too early to draw any conclusions about this occurrence. These things are always very complex,” Cunningham said.

The Flight 624 incident is the first major crash to occur at Stanfield in more than 10 years. In Oct. 2004, a Boeing 747 arrived from Connecticut for refuel and was set for Zaragosa, Spain, but struck a berm on takeoff and crashed into some woods. All seven people aboard were killed.

HAZEL GROVE, P.E.I. – A farm worker has died after the tractor he was driving left the road and rolled over onto the shoulder. According to a news release from the Queens District RCMP, police, emergency-services personnel and the New Glasgow Fire Department responded to reports of a single-vehicle collision that had occurred on Route 2 in Hazel Grove at about 8:30 p.m. on March 27. The driver, who has not been publicly identified pending notification of next of kin as of COHSN press time, was pronounced dead at the scene. The road was closed for a period of time while the responders investigated the accident scene and removed the tractor, the RCMP release stated. An investigator from P.E.I.’s occupational health and safety authorities also attended the scene, and the investigation into the incident continues.

HALIFAX, N.S. – The Halifax Regional Police (HRP) has been investigating a report that an unidentified man may have fired a shot from a firearm at a Metro Transit bus shortly after midnight on the morning of March 18. The driver of the bus told police that the suspect, who was driving a red or burgundy truck with a yellow light on the roof, had cut off the bus at a roundabout, then pulled over by the curb. The transit driver then heard what sounded like a gunshot from the car at the bus. The report described the alleged shooter as a white male in his 30s, who was wearing a yellow vest, dark pants and a jacket at the time; the truck reportedly had a salt preader at the back and a yellow plow at the front. HRP officers checked the area of the reported offence, but came up empty. The police investigation was ongoing as of COHSN press time.

WINNIPEG, Man. – The Unifor branch representing workers in charge of inspections, maintenance and repairs on rail cars and locomotives has voted to accept a new deal with Canadian National Rail (CN). Local 100 – based in Winnipeg, but covering railway employees nationally – ratified six new agreements with CN by a vote of 79 per cent in favour, the union announced in a press release on March 18. The local reached the agreements with CN on Feb. 23, in time to avoid a lockout, Unifor added. The new deal includes wage increases over the next four years, enhanced benefits, stronger job security and apprenticeship ratios, the re-establishment of a joint health and safety committee and provisions for new jobs and in-sourced work; the union and CN will also collaborate to fund initiatives for women and aboriginal workers. “This agreement showed that we were able to chart our own pattern at CN and not simply accept what had already been negotiated by other unions,” said Local 100 president Ken Hiatt, as quoted in the release. “We were able to resolve the concerns that our members at CN have raised and improve their conditions at work.” About 4,800 CN employees are Unifor members, according to the union.

HALIFAX, N.S. – Dr. K. Kellie Leitch, Canada’s Minister of Labour and Minister of Status of Women, commended Nova Scotia’s trucking sector for its devotion to health and safety during a visit with members of the Nova Scotia Trucking Safety Association (NSTSA) on March 16. Dr. Leitch, the NSTSA and employees of Atlantic Tiltload Limited discussed best practices for improving oh&s standards in the industry, in such areas as leadership, mental health and opportunities for women. She also urged the Atlantic Tiltload workers to collaborate with their employers in turning their workplace into an environment that promotes both physical and mental well-being. “Promoting employment equity and workplace health and safety – including mental wellness – is a shared responsibility,” Dr. Leitch said in a press release following the meeting. “That’s why we work with… employer and employee organizations to continue finding ways to make workplaces more inclusive and to prevent workplace injuries.” NSTSA executive director Linda Corkum said in a press statement that keeping N.S. trucking employees injury-free was the association’s top goal.