Canada’s decision to ground Boeing’s 737 MAX-8 jets in 2019 came as a result of a chance European encounter that led to new data about two deadly crashes, suggest documents obtained by Global News.
Canada was one of the last countries to ground the Boeing-MAX 8 after an Ethiopian Airlines disaster on March 10, 2019, killed 157 people, including 18 Canadians.
The tragedy followed a similar disaster involving the MAX-8 five months earlier off the coast of Indonesia, killing 189 people.
After days of frantic behind-the-scenes activity at Transport Canada, Ottawa eventually banned the American-made jets from Canadian skies on March 13. But newly-released documents obtained through access to information laws show the decision to ground the MAX-8s came just hours before the announcement, the result of what appeared to be a coincidental meeting that provided new data showing similarities between the two crashes.
Nearly 800 pages of internal government documents – including emails, briefings and memos – offer a window into the flurried 72 hours that led then-Transport Minister Marc Garneau to his decision.
Several considerations were being weighed by senior Transport Canada officials, the documents show, including the impact of grounding the MAX-8 on Canadian airlines, the position of airline unions, and a general lack of evidence linking the Indonesian and Ethiopian crashes.
In a March 12 email – less than 24 hours before Garneau banned the MAX-8 from Canadian airspace – a senior Transport Canada official said that after the Ethiopian disaster, “our world-class experts found no reason to ground the fleet.”
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“Need facts to act and we have no facts,” Aaron J. McCrorie, then in charge of safety and security at Transport Canada, wrote.
The facts would come nine hours later from an unlikely source.
According to the documents, two employees at NAV Canada – a non-profit corporation that runs Canada’s civil air navigation system – were attending a conference in Europe when they caught wind that the European Union grounded the MAX-8, based on data from a U.S.-based company called Aireon, which runs a global aircraft tracking surveillance system.
“Regarding how, when and to whom we got the satellite data… Nav Canada officials attending a conference in Europe realized that some of the data Aireon had could be of use to use,” wrote McCrorie in emails within the department explaining how the data came to light.
“Why did we only get that info yesterday morning? Simply that we did not know we could or would be provided the information. (This) is where Nav Canada (who was aware the information was available) played a key role in alerting us.”
The NAV Canada employees connected Aireon’s then-Vice President Cyriel Kronenburg with Transport Canada officials, who received the data around 6 a.m. Eastern on March 13.
“Attached you have the Ethiopian event and the Lion Air event … if you compare the two they have some similarities,” wrote François Collins, the director general of aircraft services at Transport Canada, in a 6:48 a.m. email.
Up to that point, Canadian officials did not believe there was evidence linking the two. Five hours later Garneau held a news conference and announced Canada was grounding the Boeing MAX-8 effective immediately.
Global News reported in February that the day before Garneau’s announcement, communications staff and senior officials at Transport Canada were working on three different speeches for the minister. One said that Transport Canada officials had found no reason to ban the MAX-8 from Canadian airspace. Another said that the aircraft would be permitted to enter and leave Canadian airports under certain conditions. The final speech – which Garneau ultimately gave on March 13 – grounded the MAX-8s immediately.
“My experts have looked at this (data) and compared it to the flight that occurred with Lion Air six months ago in October and there are — and I hasten to say — not conclusive, but there are similarities that sort of exceed a certain threshold in our mind,” he said at the time.
According to the documents, while Garneau and officials were making that decision, there were 16 MAX-8s flying into or out of Canadian airports. That included 13 operated by Air Canada, who told government officials that they were considering “voluntarily” grounding its fleet of Boeing jets before Garneau issued his order.
Ultimately, investigators found Ethiopian Airlines and Lion Air crashes were connected, after identifying problems with Boeing’s anti-stall software known as MCAS. Flaws in some of the aircraft sensors forced the nose of the MAX-8s down, while pilots fought to right the jets.
The two crashes signalled the start of a safety crisis at Boeing that persists today.
In 2019, Garneau said the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) had his full confidence. The FAA certified the Boeing MAX-8 and Canada accepted that certification. But a month later, Garneau said Transport Canada was changing the approval process, and would certify Boeing’s software fixes itself.
In 2021, after almost two years of grounding, Canada cleared the MAX-8 to fly again.
That same year, Boeing admitted to misleading American regulators and agreed to pay US$2.5 billion to settle with the U.S. Justice Department. The fine included compensation to the families of the Ethiopian Airlines crash victims.
But on Jan. 5, 2024, safety concerns over Boeing jets were sparked again, this time with the MAX-9 jet. The panel blew off an Alaska Airlines flight over Oregon, causing an emergency landing. No one was seriously injured.
Last March, a longtime Boeing employee who blew the whistle on the planemaker’s alleged lax safety standards was found dead in his car in South Carolina. The Charleston County Coroner’s Office told local media it appears he died from a self-inflicted wound.
Earlier this month, another Boeing employee told U.S. senators the company took shortcuts in a rush to produce as many 787 Dreamliners as possible.
“They are putting out defective airplanes,” the Boeing engineer, Sam Salehpour, told a Senate subcommittee.
The company says claims about the Dreamliner’s structural integrity are false.
Global News requested comment from Aireon, the company that provided the data to the Canadian government. A spokesperson said that Kronenburg no longer works with the company, and suggested reaching out to Transport Canada.
Global sent a list of questions to Transport Canada, including why the department didn’t proactively seek out the data, whether the department was aware such data existed, and whether or not the department has taken steps to access similar data more quickly in the event of future air disasters.
In a statement, the department did not address those questions. Instead, a Transport Canada spokesperson noted that the U.S. FAA “is the responsible civil aviation authority” for the Boeing jets involved in the crashes.
“Transport Canada continues to work closely with bilateral partners to ensure that the level of cooperation and sharing is in line with our mutual safety objectives,” the spokesperson wrote.
MONTREAL – The employers association at the Port of Montreal has issued the dockworkers’ union a “final, comprehensive offer,” threatening to lock out workers at 9 p.m. Sunday if a deal isn’t reached.
The Maritime Employers Association says its new offer includes a three per cent salary increase per year for four years and a 3.5 per cent increase for the two subsequent years. It says the offer would bring the total average compensation package of a longshore worker at the Port of Montreal to more than $200,000 per year at the end of the contract.
“The MEA agrees to this significant compensation increase in view of the availability required from its employees,” it wrote Thursday evening in a news release.
The association added that it is asking longshore workers to provide at least one hour’s notice when they will be absent from a shift — instead of one minute — to help reduce management issues “which have a major effect on daily operations.”
Syndicat des débardeurs du port de Montréal, which represents nearly 1,200 longshore workers, launched a partial unlimited strike on Oct. 31, which has paralyzed two terminals that represent 40 per cent of the port’s total container handling capacity.
A complete strike on overtime, affecting the whole port, began on Oct. 10.
The union has said it will accept the same increases that were granted to its counterparts in Halifax or Vancouver — 20 per cent over four years. It is also concerned with scheduling and work-life balance. Workers have been without a collective agreement since Dec. 31, 2023.
Only essential services and activities unrelated to longshoring will continue at the port after 9 p.m. Sunday in the event of a lockout, the employer said.
The ongoing dispute has had major impacts at Canada’s second-biggest port, which moves some $400 million in goods every day.
On Thursday, Montreal port authority CEO Julie Gascon reiterated her call for federal intervention to end the dispute, which has left all container handling capacity at international terminals at “a standstill.”
“I believe that the best agreements are negotiated at the table,” she said in a news release. “But let’s face it, there are no negotiations, and the government must act by offering both sides a path to true industrial peace.”
Federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon issued a statement Thursday, prior to the lockout notice, in which he criticized the slow pace of talks at the ports in Montreal and British Columbia, where more than 700 unionized port workers have been locked out since Nov. 4.
“Both sets of talks are progressing at an insufficient pace, indicating a concerning absence of urgency from the parties involved,” he wrote on the X social media platform.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.
HALIFAX – Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston says it’s “disgraceful and demeaning” that a Halifax-area school would request that service members not wear military uniforms to its Remembrance Day ceremony.
Houston’s comments were part of a chorus of criticism levelled at the school — Sackville Heights Elementary — whose administration decided to back away from the plan after the outcry.
A November newsletter from the school in Middle Sackville, N.S., invited Armed Forces members to attend its ceremony but asked that all attendees arrive in civilian attire to “maintain a welcoming environment for all.”
Houston, who is currently running for re-election, accused the school’s leaders of “disgracing themselves while demeaning the people who protect our country” in a post on the social media platform X Thursday night.
“If the people behind this decision had a shred of the courage that our veterans have, this cowardly and insulting idea would have been rejected immediately,” Houston’s post read. There were also several calls for resignations within the school’s administration attached to Houston’s post.
In an email to families Thursday night, the school’s principal, Rachael Webster, apologized and welcomed military family members to attend “in the attire that makes them most comfortable.”
“I recognize this request has caused harm and I am deeply sorry,” Webster’s email read, adding later that the school has the “utmost respect for what the uniform represents.”
Webster said the initial request was out of concern for some students who come from countries experiencing conflict and who she said expressed discomfort with images of war, including military uniforms.
Her email said any students who have concerns about seeing Armed Forces members in uniform can be accommodated in a way that makes them feel safe, but she provided no further details in the message.
Webster did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
At a news conference Friday, Houston said he’s glad the initial request was reversed but said he is still concerned.
“I can’t actually fathom how a decision like that was made,” Houston told reporters Friday, adding that he grew up moving between military bases around the country while his father was in the Armed Forces.
“My story of growing up in a military family is not unique in our province. The tradition of service is something so many of us share,” he said.
“Saying ‘lest we forget’ is a solemn promise to the fallen. It’s our commitment to those that continue to serve and our commitment that we will pass on our respects to the next generation.”
Liberal Leader Zach Churchill also said he’s happy with the school’s decision to allow uniformed Armed Forces members to attend the ceremony, but he said he didn’t think it was fair to question the intentions of those behind the original decision.
“We need to have them (uniforms) on display at Remembrance Day,” he said. “Not only are we celebrating (veterans) … we’re also commemorating our dead who gave the greatest sacrifice for our country and for the freedoms we have.”
NDP Leader Claudia Chender said that while Remembrance Day is an important occasion to honour veterans and current service members’ sacrifices, she said she hopes Houston wasn’t taking advantage of the decision to “play politics with this solemn occasion for his own political gain.”
“I hope Tim Houston reached out to the principal of the school before making a public statement,” she said in a statement.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.
VANCOUVER – Employers and the union representing supervisors embroiled in a labour dispute that triggered a lockout at British Columbia’s ports will attempt to reach a deal when talks restart this weekend.
A spokesman from the office of federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon has confirmed the minister spoke with leaders at both the BC Maritime Employers Association and International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 514, but did not invoke any section of the Canadian Labour Code that would force them back to talks.
A statement from the ministry says MacKinnon instead “asked them to return to the negotiation table,” and talks are now scheduled to start on Saturday with the help of federal mediators.
A meeting notice obtained by The Canadian Press shows talks beginning in Vancouver at 5 p.m. and extendable into Sunday and Monday, if necessary.
The lockout at B.C. ports by employers began on Monday after what their association describes as “strike activity” from the union. The result was a paralysis of container cargo traffic at terminals across Canada’s west coast.
In the meantime, the union says it has filed a complaint against the employers for allegedly bargaining in bad faith, a charge that employers call a “meritless claim.”
The two sides have been without a deal since March 2023, and the employers say its final offer presented last week in the last round of talks remains on the table.
The proposed agreement includes a 19.2 per cent wage increase over a four-year term along with an average lump sum payment of $21,000 per qualified worker.
The union has said one of its key concerns is the advent of port automation in cargo operations, and workers want assurances on staffing levels regardless of what technology is being used at the port.
The disruption is happening while two container terminals are shut down in Montreal in a separate labour dispute.
It leaves container cargo traffic disrupted at Canada’s two biggest ports, Vancouver and Montreal, both operating as major Canadian trade gateways on the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.
This is one of several work disruptions at the Port of Vancouver, where a 13-day strike stopped cargo last year, while labour strife in the rail and grain-handling sectors led to further disruptions earlier this year.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.
