Transport Canada’s daily CADORS (Civil Aviation Daily Occurence Reporting System) doesn’t usually have a flair for the dramatic but Air Tindi President Chris Reynolds says it made a lot more of a relatively minor incident involving one of its aircraft than actually occurred. The normally taciturn factual recounting of aviation mishaps told an impressive tale of an in-flight engine failure followed by a glide to landing at an isolated air strip of one of the airline’s Cessna Caravans in late September. Reynolds said none of that happened. “It’s an inaccurate report,” he told the CBC.
Reynolds said the Caravan was on its way from Yellowknife to Fort Simpson with three passengers and one pilot aboard when the pilot got an indication that the aircraft’s back-up redundant alternator had failed. After notifying Edmonton Centre, he made an uneventful precautionary landing at Rae/Edzo Airport in Behchoko. Reynolds speculated that there was miscommunication with the centre controllers that led to the mangled report. He said the aircraft “definitely had power and landed with power.” A Transport Canada spokeswoman told the CBC that CADORS is the preliminary report on an incident and subject to change as more information becomes available. “Transport Canada endeavours to ensure the accuracy and integrity of the data contained within CADORS, however, the information within should be treated as preliminary, unsubstantiated and subject to change,” Cybelle Morin told the network.