Transport minister tells Canadians not to worry about U.S. travel after deadly N.Y. plane crash

Transportation Minister and Government House Leader Steven MacKinnon discusses Canadians' concerns over air safety and foreign interference.

Transport Minister Steven MacKinnon said that U.S. airports are safe and have “very, very evolved airplane and air safety measures,” despite a deadly incident involving an Air Canada plane at a New York airport last week.

“I don’t have any reason to believe that there is anything systemically wrong with the U.S. system that would cause undue alarm,” MacKinnon said in an interview on CTV Power Play with Vassy Kapelos on Thursday.

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U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said LaGuardia Airport was a “very well staffed airport,” despite having four fewer air traffic controllers than its target staffing levels.

Officials said there were two air traffic controllers on duty when an Air Canada plane collided with a fire truck last Sunday. A controller cleared the flight for landing but also cleared a firetruck to cross the plane’s path.

The controller caught his mistake and told the truck to stop 12 times in 10 seconds, but was unable to prevent the collision.

MacKinnon said both Canada and U.S. air safety authorities were investigating the crash.

“They’re doing the hard, very detailed work of going through the flight data recorder, getting the encryption, decrypting the data,” MacKinnon said, adding that he expected the first results of the investigation to be ready within 30 days.

He said the “truth will come out,” and “we have an incredibly safe and secure air transport system in this country with incredibly qualified pilots.”

The International Federation of Air Traffic Controllers believes the U.S. to be short somewhere between 3,000 and 4,000 controllers.

Nav Canada, Canada’s air traffic controller authority, told CTV News on Wednesday that the country is 200 controllers below target. Nearly 50,000 people applied to be air traffic controllers, but only 500 were brought into training programs, Nav Canada said.

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With files from CTV News’ Vassy Kapelos and Heather Wright