Description

On 6 March 2009, a Bombardier CRJ 705 being operated by Air Canada Jazz on a daylight scheduled domestic passenger flight from Vancouver BC to Whitehorse landed on runway 31L without clearance and after overflying two snow sweepers operating on the same runway. There was no contact between the aircraft and the vehicles or any abrupt avoidance manoeuvre and none of the 58 aircraft occupants or those in the vehicles were injured.

Investigation

An Investigation was carried out by the Canadian TSB. It was noted that the Incident had not been reported promptly to the TSB and that the Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) had not been secured which had both resulted in the loss of evidence which would have been beneficial to the Investigation.

It was established than after transfer from the Whitehorse sector of Edmonton ACC to Whitehorse TWR, an ILS approach to Runway 31L had been hand-flown by the aircraft commander in IMC using the HUD. On initial contact with destination ATC, which was non-radar, no current position or estimate for arrival was given or requested but TWR had asked for a call at 10nm finals and advised that sweeping was in progress and this call was acknowledged. It was noted that just prior to this, the TWR controller had relieved a colleague in position. No 10 nm report (or a level-passing call requested to be made on Box 2 by the ACC controller at transfer) had been made and the aircraft had landed at Whitehorse approximately nine minutes later.