A volunteer with an organization that watches the Ottawa airport's
perimeter has been dismissed after speaking with the media about a mishap
last week when a plane overran the runway.
Stephanie Nicholds had been a volunteer for seven years with CYOW Airport
Watch, the group of aviation enthusiasts that watches the airport's
perimeter and reports suspicious activity to security officials.
Nicholds witnessed a United Airlines Express Embraer 145 arriving from
Washington, D.C., on Wednesday afternoon that cleared the wet runway and
wound up nose down in a grassy ditch about 150 metres from the landing
strip.
The plane was carrying 36 people. Two crew members and one elderly
passenger suffered minor injuries.
She spoke to media at the scene, saying the plane "was hydroplaning down
the runway, and all of a sudden the airplane just ditched into the grass."
The next day Airport Watch chair Nelson Plamondon summoned her to a
meeting, and told her she was no longer a member.
Plamondon said that after a similar incident two years ago volunteers
were warned not to speak to the media. It's a policy he said he's been
"constantly reminding" them of ever since.
"When this reoccurred, it was the second such incident, which made it
much worse," said Plamondon.
A spokesperson for the Ottawa Macdonald-Cartier International Airport
Authority said Nicholds is guilty of a "serious breach" of the rules, and
said the airport demanded Airport Watch take what it called "corrective
action."
The airport authority said any speculation about what may or may not have
happened during the runway incident should be left for the Transportation
Safety Board to determine.
Nicholds said she thinks the group is overreacting.
"I think they made a big mistake taking me off the watch," she said. "I
just hope they can reconsider."
Congratulations and thanks to Stephanie Nichold for being the ONLY VOICE to
tell the public what happened.
The plan was observed to touch down, past the mid point of the runway, a very
wet runway at high speed, where hydroplaning was guaranteed under a formula that
those pilots flying should have had in their heads from their training.
At that high speed, without any effective braking until it slowed down, the
Embraer 145 was guaranteed to "all of a sudden, have its nose ditch down in the
grass.
Stephanie Nichold is now most unlikely to ever again get this opportunity to
observe an accident and get to be the only person in town to inform the public
what happened.
She should now hold her head high and tell those stuffy idiots to get out of her
life.
Thanks Stephanie!
www.OttawaMensCentre.com
