A plane taxis down a runway at the Ottawa International Airport, where a plane skid off a runway Sept. 4.

Picture yourself about to land a commercial airliner loaded with passengers. Thousands of feet below is a thin concrete strip invisible beneath the cloudy night sky. With appropriate charts detailing the surface conditions of the runway, you've calculated the braking and landing distance for a safe touchdown and reports have indicated a dry surface ahead.

But as you descend closer to the tarmac, you notice a shine; the runway appears to be wet. You call in for another report but there is nobody there to take an accurate reading. You've already locked in your calculations and it’s too late to go back. As the wheels touch down, the plane jerks. You've overshot your landing.

If you're lucky, there’s enough runway to adjust, resulting in nothing more than a little scare, unnoticed by passengers impatient for the seat belt light to turn off. But what if luck isn’t on your side and control over the plane is no longer in your hands? At violent speeds you rip down the runway, only to run out of concrete real estate.

"The results could be catastrophic," says Capt. Barry Wiszniowski, head of the safety division for the Air Canada Pilots Association. "The number one cause of fatalities in commercial airlines today is landing excursions. And Canada has been slow to react to this problem."

Multimedia Slideshow: Learning to land Jean René de Cotret, a flight instructor at the Rockcliffe Flying Club, uses a flight simulator to soar through the basics of landing a small plane.

A 2008 Transport Canada study documented 46 runway overruns involving larger aircrafts from 1989 to 2006, noting that 11 resulted in serious injury. Written in the wake of the crash of Air France Flight 358 at Toronto's Pearson International Airport in 2005, the document reports that runway overruns are three times more likely to happen in Canada than in the United States. That number jumps to seven times more than the U.S. when the runway is wet. Overall, Canada doubles the global average for runway overruns.

Earlier this month, the Ottawa International Airport was home to the nation's latest landing scare. United Express Flight 3363 from Chicago and carrying 44 passengers, overshot the runway and nosedived into a field. Despite significant damage to the plane, passengers managed to walk away with merely a traumatic story to share with their family and friends.

So why is the accident rate on Canada's runways so much higher than other nations'?

International standards

Wiszniowski attributes this to Canada not meeting the international mark for runway lengths and safety areas as set out by the International Civil Aviation Organization, an aviation regulatory body ironically headquartered in Montreal.

"We're currently not compliant at all Canadian airports," Wiszniowski says. "And there's many airports that don't meet the standard."

The standard for Canada is a 60-metre buffer strip at the end of a runway with an additional recommendation of 90 metres. If airports comply with the recommended 90-metre zone, they would meet the 150-metre guideline set out by the ICAO. To date, only 50 of Canada's 211 airports meet or exceed this international mark. Most of these are located in major cities. But when you consider that the ICAO recommends an additional 150 metres to its minimum requirement, most Canadian runways would need to double their length to make the international grade.

"The number one cause of fatalities in commercial airlines today is landing excursions. And Canada has been slow to react to this problem."

Ottawa's major airport, the setting of Canada's latest runway overrun, not only meets the international minimum but also matches the additional 150 metres, reaching the 300-metre recommended standard by ICAO. So what else could be playing a role in these mishaps?

Weather conditions

Mark Clitsome, director of investigations for the Transport Safety Board of Canada, adds that difficulty in receiving accurate runway surface reports plays a role in what he says is a complex problem.

He says pilots are often not getting accurate reports because of Canada's volatile weather.

"Every time the environment changes, the runway friction changes," he explains. "It can change in five minutes. It can change in five hours."

He notes that major airports are equipped with special vehicles that monitor the condition of runway surfaces, but even then the weather can be so changeable that data are unreliable.

Rain, snow, ice and slush are just a few of the different elements that make Canadian runways a danger zone for landing. Grooved runways have been adopted by countries such as the U.S., U.K. and Australia to increase traction and prevent planes from skidding.

Developed by NASA in the early 1960s, grooved runways consist of thin corrugations cut into concrete channels, allowing water to drain off the edge of the landing surface. The grooves are said to drastically cut the number of runway accidents, something Canada has yet to buy into, both literally and figuratively.

When asked why Canada has yet to jump on this groovy runway movement, Melanie Quesnel, a media relations advisor for Transport Canada, wrote via email that there have been no conclusive studies conducted in Canada that indicate whether grooved runways have friction characteristics different from that of sloped runways. In simple terms, the government doesn’t see the need, despite the safety arguments. Instead, Canada has sloped runways that control surface drainage.

Canada's signature messy weather, such as slush and rain, make landing on Canadian runways tricky.

But Canada's grim runway reputation could be turning around.  In late September Transport Canada moved forward a draft regulation to beef up Canada's landing pads. If approved, and it's expected to be, the improvements could cost as much as $400 million. The renovations will see that all airport runways get a face lift to meet the 150-metre international standards set out by the IAOC. Airport operators will be expected to foot the bill, a price many may actually 'run-way' from.

But Wiszniowski says his organization supports the decision and will continue to push to make things safer for both the pilots and the public no matter what the cost.

“You can’t put a dollar value on safety,” he says.

Learning to land

Jean René de Cotret, a flight instructor at the Rockcliffe Flying Club, uses a flight simulator to soar through the basics of landing a small plane.