A deadheading captain helped a flight crew whose first officer got disabled during an incident on a trip between Toronto and St. John’s, Canada.
An Air Canada Airbus A220-300 was operating the regularly scheduled flight AC692 between Toronto Pearson International Airport (YYZ) and St. John’s International Airport (YYT) when the event took place on June 7, 2023.
During the flight, the first officer lost consciousness. A deadheading captain took over the crew member’s responsibilities and safely landed the aircraft. When the plane landed, emergency medical services were waiting at the gate.
The Air Canada flight arrived at YYT after a two-hour and forty-seven-minute journey, however, the crew never squawked the emergency code, 7700.
According to the TSB’s spokesperson, the investigative body defined this as a class 5 occurrence. “Class 5 occurrences are not subject to comprehensive investigations followed by an investigation report,” they added, mentioning that data on such class incidents is “recorded in suitable scope for possible future safety analysis, statistical reporting, or archival purposes”.
Three hours later, the C-GJXY Airbus A220-300 belonging to Air Canada that was involved in the incident took off from YYT in the direction of YYZ.
