It’s been a long road to recovery for the Snowbirds team as the rest of the planes prepare to finally leave Kamloops.
Speaking to NL News, Major Kyle Pilatzke, the Squadron’s Aircraft Maintenance Engineering Officer, says there has been a lot of work done over the last three months to ensure that the planes are safe to fly.
“It could be structure, it could be parts of the engine, it could be avionics portions [so that things] are getting the proper amount of scrutiny and proper care and attention,” he said.
“We might change some of our preventative maintenance actions and that way things are caught early and are caught in such a way that we can address them without having an extra maintenance burden.”
Pilatzke was present at the airport on Tuesday morning when two of the iconic Tutor jets departed for Moose Jaw. He says he doesn’t deploy very often, but he’s been in Kamloops since August 19.
“My primary focus was because we brought a bigger maintenance team to ensure that the communication was thorough and the we were ensuring all the known requirements were covered off for all the aircraft that were here,” he said, noting they’re looking forward to the future.
“Making sure we have cross checked, double checked and rechecked everything to make sure that no stone is unturned as it were, and that the assessments that were made were accurate and that we are fully within the operating envelope and the safety of the aircraft so that we can certify the aircraft as safe for flight.”
The planes, he also noted aren’t usually left in another city for as long as they have been in Kamloops.
“They were outside so we make sure we keep monitoring their condition and communicate any problems we have so that we can get the proper fix done prior to them taking off,” Pilatzke said. “We had somethings we knew about and then we brought extra resources to deal that the things that might be unexpected and show up on us at the last second.”
Commanding Officer Lt.-Col. Denis Bandet says he has every confidence in the Tutor Jet moving forward, noting he would not be piloting one of the planes back if he wasn’t confident.
Pilatzke says most of the Snowbirds support team will be leaving Kamloops in the next few days, but he says there will be a few technicians staying back until the rest of the planes have left.
“I’m happy with way everything has progressed and I’m happy with the pace that we have had here because it hasn’t been terribly rushed,” he noted. “We’ve had adequate time to double and triple check everything that we have been doing, which is really really good, especially on this particular day.”
An operational pause on the Snowbirds fleet was lifted on August 24, but with added restrictions on flying operations. Back in June, a preliminary report suggested a suspected a bird strike as the cause of the crash that also sent the pilot Capt. Richard MacDougall to hospital.
