Rare Landing at Banff Airstrip Draws Federal Investigation

A rare landing at the Banff Airstrip on July 28 is still being assessed by the Transportation Safety Board of Canada, weeks after a small aircraft touched down at the normally restricted site.

Landing at the Banff Airstrip, a flat grassy area next to Highway 1 near Cascade Mountain between the east and west entrances to Banff, is prohibited except in emergency situations or for authorized diversionary landings.

“Parks Canada Law Enforcement has completed its review and determined that the pilot provided sufficient information to support the need to land,” said Tomi Postma, public relations and communications officer with Parks Canada.

Postma said Parks Canada was made aware of the small aircraft landing on July 28 and noted that Transport Canada is responsible for any further investigation of aircraft access violations.

The Transportation Safety Board, meanwhile, said its investigation remains ongoing.

"Other than the fact that an Aviat Aircraft Inc. Sky International A-1C-200 landed at the Banff Airstrip in Banff National Park on July 28, we don't have much information on that event. We are still collecting information and assessing the event," said Hugo Fontaine, media relations coordinator for the Transportation Safety Board of Canada.

Emergency landings like this are rare. Parks Canada does not maintain a public list of emergency landings, but the TSB has recorded only eight occurrences at the airstrip since the board was established in 1990, including some while the airstrip was still in operation. The most recent was a turbulent emergency landing in 2004. The most serious, and the only one to cause injury, was a night takeoff in July 1996 that resulted in the aircraft striking a tree and crashing into the former Army Cadet compound. Both occupants were pulled from the wreckage with severe burns, and the aircraft was destroyed.

The airstrip was established in 1933. According to the Banff Springs Hotel, legend has it that the ‘King of Swing’ Benny Goodman refused to play at the hotel after learning how far Banff was from Calgary by car, prompting the airstrip to be built so he could fly closer to town.

Removing the airstrip was debated as early as 1979, but it wasn't legally closed until 1997, after the Banff Bow Valley Study concluded that "habitat fragmentation is a serious threat to the Bow Valley's ecological integrity." After the closure, the buffalo paddock, horse barns and corrals were removed and the fuelling facility was drained. Local aviators fought the decommissioning in court and with frequent "defiant landings and takeoffs," which delayed the continued removal of structures. An Alberta provincial court judge called the Banff Airstrip "undead" because it appeared to be in operation despite being legally closed.

In 2001, the Army Cadet camp was removed from Banff, leaving the airstrip as the only remaining major facility in the Cascade Corridor. Years of studies into the environmental and aviation safety impacts of decommissioning the airstrip concluded the environmental impact would be positive but there would be a minimal negative impact on aviation safety. In March 2008, the Government of Canada announced its decision to halt the decommissioning and reclamation project due to the legal uncertainty created by the closed airstrip and the risk to pilots. The airstrip was then re-listed in the National Park Aircraft Access Regulations, with access restricted to emergency and diversionary landings.

The remaining non-emergency structures at the airstrip were removed in 2021, and Parks Canada continues to maintain it with grass mowing and snow removal.