The Transportation Safety Board (Bureau de la sécurité des transports du Canada) is the Canadian agency responsible for maintaining transportation safety in Canada. The agency investigates accidents and makes safety recommendations in several modes of transport, including aviation, rail, marine, and pipelines. The headquarters are located in Gatineau, Quebec.

The TSB was convened for the first time under the Canadian Transportation Accident Investigation and Safety Board Act, which was enacted on March 29th, 1990. It was formed at least partly in response to widespread criticism of the Canadian government's handling (through the responsible agency at the time, the Canadian Aviation Safety Board) of the investigation into the crash of Arrow Air Flight 1285.

The provisions of Canadian Transportation Accident Investigation and Safety Board Act were written to establish a more arm's length relationship between the board and the government. This new mechanism's first major test came with crash of Swissair 111, on September 2, 1998, the largest single aviation accident ever on Canadian territory since the Arrow Air disaster. The TSB delivered its report on the accident on March 27, 2003, some 4 1/2 years after the accident and at a cost of 57 million CAD, making it the most complex and costly accident investigation in Canadian history.

The Transportation Safety Board's mandate is as follows:

• conducting independent investigations, including public inquiries when necessary, into selected transportation occurrences in order to make findings as to their causes and contributing factors;
• identifying safety deficiencies, as evidenced by transportation occurrences;
• making recommendations designed to eliminate or reduce any such safety deficiencies; and
• reporting publicly on our investigations and on the findings in relation thereto

See also

• Air safety
• NTSB, the US counterpart agency.
• AAIB, the United Kingdom counterpart agency.
• BEA, the France conterpart agency.
• BFU, the Germany conterpart agency.

External links

• Transportation Safety Board website

Air crash investigatorsAviation authorities | Safety organizations | Canadian federal departments and agencies

Bureau de la sécurité des transports