The headline in Tuesday's Daily Courier (Plane slips off tarmac) borders on sensationalism.
So an aircraft manoeuvred off a snow-covered tarmac or apron onto the grass with no injuries to anyone and no damage to the plane, comparable to driving your car off a snow-covered driveway onto your lawn. Embarrassing to the aircrew no doubt, and causing some inconvenience to Westjet and the passengers, but hardly a catastrophic occurrence.
As the holder of a commercial pilot's licence for 30 years and as a former employee of both Air Canada and the Department of Transport, I contend that competent airport management would have quietly deplaned the passengers, extricated the aircraft and not allowed the virtual non-event to be turned into a media circus.
Fred Woodward,
Kelowna