There was a fire at Pearson on November 28th. Specifically the Tower was evacuated for smoke and/or fire:
NAV CANADA ADVZY 003 CYYZ/CZY *** TORONTO TWR IMMEDIATE EVACUATION ***
EMERGENCY EVACUATION OF TORONTO CONTROL TOWER — SMOKE.
ALL AIR TRAFFIC UNITS SHALL IMMEDIATELY GROUND STOP ALL IFR
DEPARTURES INTO OR THROUGH THE TORONTO TOWER.
FSS ARE REQUESTED TO PASS THIS MESSAGE TO APPROPRIATE TOWERS AND
APPROACH CONTROL UNITS ASAP. YXU FIC PLS ADVISE TRENTON MTCU AT
613-965-2979.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:
TORONTO TMU 905-676-3528 / 800-268-4831 / USA 800-387-3801
06/11/29 02:14 NOC
LiveATC.net has some interesting chatter on Toronto Centre as controllers put a bunch of planes into holds while the tower is evacutated.
Air Canada 427 Holding before landing at YYZ
I was in the air when this happened. They told us it was a false alarm. The co-pilot informed us we were cirlcing the simcoe vor. We flew for an extra 45 mins. When we landed the airport was a madhouse. Everybody was rushing to make connections.
I was listening live to it when it unfold because CAT II/III operations are always interesting. I said to myself “what? Fire??” Anyway, very nice to hear the controllers are extreamlly calm and ‘have no sweat at all’ dealing with situation like this. Very well trained.
Also, interesting to hear some planes are holding at the Meadowvale Beacon which is only 4nm from the runway. I wonder what the resident under the path will think when they see so much planes holding over them ‘at low altitude’