American Airlines crash in Jamaica could intensify pilot fatigue debate
Thursday, December 24, 2009
By ERIC TORBENSON / The Dallas Morning News
[email protected] / The Dallas Morning News
The rain-slicked crash of American Airlines Flight 331 on Tuesday night in Kingston, Jamaica, may well intensify calls for new policies on pilot fatigue.
The inquiry into the crash – in which all 148 passengers and six crew members walked out of a plane broken into three sections – has just begun, and conclusions remain months away.
But it eerily resembles earlier incidents that have spurred the nation's air safety regulator to challenge the rules for how long pilots rest and how much they can fly each month.
And it could prompt a fresh look at Fort Worth-based American's pilot procedures and cockpit culture as investigators hunt for clues to why the plane skidded off the runway and broke up just feet from the Caribbean Sea, aviation experts said Wednesday.
No one was killed in the accident, but about 90 passengers were treated for minor injuries.
In June 1999, an American Airlines captain of an MD-82 aircraft landed the plane in Little Rock, Ark., during a thunderstorm. In the confusion, he and his co-pilot failed to set wing spoilers and braking systems that would have helped the plane slow down. Instead it ran off the runway and split into pieces. The National Transportation Safety Board pointed to pilot fatigue as a factor in the decisions that led to the accident that killed 11.
"Little Rock-ian does come to mind," said airline and pilot union consultant Robert Mann of Port Washington, N.Y.
Several elements – and perhaps fatigue – combined to create a situation Tuesday where the American jet slid off the 8,910-foot Kingston runway, which is about medium-length among airports.
Crew alertness
Flight 331's pilot and co-pilot had been on duty nearly 12 hours, approaching the maximum allowed, according to union officials.
"You really have to look at how long these guys are on duty," said Sam Mayer, a spokesman for the Allied Pilots Association, which represents 9,000 American pilots.
On Dec. 13, fatigue may have played a role in a botched landing of an American jet in Charlotte, N.C., where pilots clipped one of the MD-80's wing tips on the ground and the wheels briefly left the runway. No one was injured in the incident, which is under investigation.
Mayer added that American doesn't pay pilots whose trips get interrupted and who can't complete the flying they signed up for. The pilots of Flight 331 were on their first day of a multi-day sequence of trips that, had they diverted the plane to another city, would probably have jeopardized their ability to fly out the rest of the sequence. Not completing trips can cost pilots thousands of dollars in lost income, Mayer said.
"Our pilots shouldn't have to sacrifice their principles to get paid," he said.
The Federal Aviation Administration is expected to issue formal guidelines that change pilot rest rules, probably cutting the maximum time they can be on duty in a day or over several days. The push for more pilot-friendly rules comes as fatigue is likely to have factored in the February crash of a turboprop plane in Buffalo, N.Y., that killed 50.
