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Bad chocks, brake training blamed for crunching of prime minister’s plane

Jun 18, 2020 | 3:10 PM

OTTAWA — Military investigators say the Royal Canadian Air Force plane normally used by the prime minister hit a hangar wall last year after a maintenance crew used the wrong chocks, and not enough of them, to hold it in place.

The crash at Canadian Forces Base Trenton in Ontario occurred in October.

It left the CC-150 Airbus with structural damage to the nose and right engine that is still being repaired.

A timeline released today says a maintenance crew set the plane’s parking brake and put chocks on its wheels to keep it from rolling while they changed a tractor to tow it into a hangar.

The plane nonetheless started to roll, jumping over the chocks and resisting attempts by the groundcrew to stop it before smashing into the wall and tractor.

Investigators cited a lack of brake training as a cause for concern and said they found the chocks used to secure the plane did not meet standards and were not installed on all the wheels.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 18, 2020.

The Canadian Press