Breaking News: FAA to require pilots know how to fly

[Jar Jar]

so did anything actually happen or is babbit just blowing hot air again?

 

[Raskal]

So wait, is the article saying that better training with flight attendants would have improved the outcome of the Buffalo flight that day? Um, what?

Idiotic article illustrating some of the latest "theories" at the top of the FAA...but hey, ALPA says he's cool...

 

[Bringupthebird]

How did the Colgan Captain do on his basic piloting tests when the F/O decided to raise the flaps (uncommanded by the pilot flying)? I mean they do test for crewmembers to do just the wrong thing at just the wrong time don't they?

 

[densoo]

The original post is a result of the Colgan crash....2 of the next 3 responses cited rest requirements.

The whole fatigue discussion is legitimate IMO. When an airline creates a culture through low pay, hub selection, and scheduling practices, there are predictable and controllable outcomes to margins of safety. Some of these are just part of their business model, but the affects on safety can be known and mitigated.

One is low pay. They know with certainty that low pay is going to require folks to live a long way from the hub like NYC, or to live nearer in insufficient rest facilities like crash pads with hot bunking and people coming and going at all times of the day and night. They knew this was a problem because they told people they weren't allowed to sleep in the crew room. Proof positive that they were aware of the issue.

Another is fatigue calls. If they are aware of market forces at all, and certainly they are as MBAs, then every airline that has a lose-pay fatigue policy should be held liable for any incidents/accidents resulting from fatigue. A pilot should never fly fatigued, but when they lose pay in a fatigue call the result is entirely predictable. The FAA or Congress should make a rule/law that prohibits loss of pay for a fatigue call.

 

[densoo]

So wait, is the article saying that better training with flight attendants would have improved the outcome of the Buffalo flight that day?

A draft of the sim profile is already floating around the internet. If the FA senses a rapid bumping like boat going across choppy water, they are to immediately contact the flight deck. As soon as the flight deck answers they are to yell, "RECOVER!" The hands on training during ground school is going to be everyone meeting at a nearby lake for speed boat over choppy water familiarization.

 

[Cpt Oveur]

Joe, the FO commuted in to work via Fedex and slept in a chair in the crew lounge that morning once she arrived in EWR. While she legally did have the rest, hardly seems adequate. However, the responsibility to show up to work rested and prepared will always be up to the pilot. Thousands of professionals are able to do this time and time again without making it to the headlines and (thankfully) no one getting injured or killed.

 

[densoo]

Joe, the FO commuted in to work via Fedex and slept in a chair in the crew lounge that morning once she arrived in EWR. While she legally did have the rest, hardly seems adequate. However, the responsibility to show up to work rested and prepared will always be up to the pilot. Thousands of professionals are able to do this time and time again without making it to the headlines and (thankfully) no one getting injured or killed.

Pilots should not fly if unfit to fly.

But,

When the airline creates a culture in which pilots have to do this to feed themselves--and know very well this is happening (they prohibited sleeping in the crew room)--then the airline bears some responsiblity for this accident.

 

[waveflyer]

I agree with all the posters that said cumulative and situational fatigue were a factor. If you don't- you're just wrong- Also agree w/ salukiGod of aviation- that I wouldn't make the mistakes that capt made- and I like this step- I still don't think Sims are the problem- we could get rid of a LOt of the undisciplined riff-raff if we got rid of the complete joke of FAA written tests.

Want to raise the bar on the quality of pilots, make the tests more like the Bar. Hell, make it a challenge that a 4th grader couldn't pass in a week at least.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

What kind of bat guano is this? You can train us to fly the whole simulator profile inverted if you want to, but if you're not going to hold people who fail accountable for those failures it's a pointless exercise. That crash had nothing to do with pilot training, and had everything to do with making sure pilots are well rested and paid enough so they don't have to travel across the country to have a place to live. When a McDonald’s employee can make more than a pilot in a year you would think that we have a problem.

So the contention is, that in the Colgan case, if the pilots had been paid more money they would have made different personal choices with reference to their commute or would have moved to Newark. They would therefore have been better rested and responded properly to what amounts to an unnoticed degradation of airspeed, had that airspeed and configuration oversight still occurred they would have executed properly a basic maneuver taught at the private pilot level....because they were better rested.

 

[BoilerUP]

Higher pay don't fix stupid, ie. pulling into a stick shaker.

 

[densoo]

So the contention is, that in the Colgan case, if the pilots had been paid more money they would have made different personal choices with reference to their commute or would have moved to Newark. They would therefore have been better rested and responded properly to what amounts to an unnoticed degradation of airspeed,

Yes. Guaranteed? No. But had they been better rested there's certainly a higher probability that that would have noticed the airplane was entering a bad aerodynamic state.

...had that airspeed and configuration oversight still occurred they would have executed properly a basic maneuver taught at the private pilot level....because they were better rested.

Unlikely. This addresses training and skills, both of which the NTSB found deficient.

 

[Tweaker]

Higher pay don't fix stupid, ie. pulling into a stick shaker.

Finally someone acknowledges the elephant in the room!

It would much more effective and FREE to liquidate GULFSTREAM ACADEMY pay for training airlines. Incompetent scrubs who buy their way into jobs their skills/experience don't warrant on their own = DEAD PEOPLE.

Colgan Q400 @ BUF - Gulfstream puppy mill Capt.

Lexington, KY RJ - Gulfstream puppy mill F/O

I can't recall at present the other RJ crash that had GULFSTREAM tards at teh wheel

Those were 90% of the Part 121 deaths over a 5 year period!

The cockpit transcript in the LEX and BUF recorded these untalented chimps going on and on about the next career step, all the while they were at a deficiency of ability at their present position! The peter principle (one advances to the point of being inept at their final level) is real, and when it goes bad in aviation people die. When someone can literally BUY THEIR WAY TO CAREER PROGRESSION we have turbo speed carnage. It really is that simple.

 

[Raskal]

A draft of the sim profile is already floating around the internet. If the FA senses a rapid bumping like boat going across choppy water, they are to immediately contact the flight deck. As soon as the flight deck answers they are to yell, "RECOVER!" The hands on training during ground school is going to be everyone meeting at a nearby lake for speed boat over choppy water familiarization.

Well played sir :beer:

 

[Turtle21]

Well the captain had over 21 hours of rest prior to duty in, and the FO was off the day before and it was a 1330 report...Now I ask again, what changes in the rest rules would have changed this? Any fatigue was self induced...Should we restrict commuting?

Facts please...not emotional rhetoric...

Just because one fatal accident, on one single day, did not happen as a result of insufficient rest, it does not follow that all other flight on all other days are piloted by well rested pilots.

Just because it may not have been possible for the FAA to ensure greater rest in the accident you mention, it does not mean that pilots are lying about the necessity for the FAA to establish better rest rules.

Who would deny better rest rules (min time behind the hotel room door for one, to account for traffic SNAFUs or absent busses) would in fact ensure more safety?

 

[densoo]

Who would deny better rest rules (min time behind the hotel room door for one, to account for traffic SNAFUs or absent busses) would in fact ensure more safety?

I want them just to simplify my monthly bid process, in which I have to essentially build sane rest rules into my bid. It's amazing how few trips are left after I've put in 11 hours or more block to block (which gives you less than 10 behind the door), duty day length, frontside/backside clock-swapping, legs per day, etc. It would be nice if the FAA did this for me. It took them two days to make changes to ATC schedules, why two years for pilots?

 

[JAFI]

No where does the FAA demand that a company only have minimum rest, training, experence, and pay.

Where was the management at Colgan when the minimum was the norm, going to the bank maybe??

 

[LearLove]

our "spots" in CQT this year now include a high altitude stall/recovery.

 

[pilotyip]

I agree with all the posters that said cumulative and situational fatigue were a factor. If you don't- you're just wrong- Also agree w/ salukiGod of aviation- that I wouldn't make the mistakes that capt made- and I like this step- I still don't think Sims are the problem- we could get rid of a LOt of the undisciplined riff-raff if we got rid of the complete joke of FAA written tests.

Want to raise the bar on the quality of pilots, make the tests more like the Bar. Hell, make it a challenge that a 4th grader couldn't pass in a week at least.

yea lets make a SAT of 1300 the min for an ATP, or ACT 29, two years of college math through Calc II, one year of calc based physics, and chem. Kinda like the military academy entrance requirements, that would put smarter piltos into the cockpit, if we could find them

 

[Flyer1015]

Colgan Q400 @ BUF - Gulfstream puppy mill Capt.

Lexington, KY RJ - Gulfstream puppy mill F/O

I can't recall at present the other RJ crash that had GULFSTREAM tards at teh wheel

The one you can't recall was Pinnacle's "410 it" pilots.

But I will say that the Lexington crash happened by a CA who had around 4800TT and the FO around 6300TT. Bringing up Gulfstream academy for just the FO, which probably 6,000 hours BEFORE the accident, is a moot point. No one can conclude that this Comair crash wouldn't have happened if this FO trained elsewhere from Gulfstream.

 

[Dumb Pilot]

yea lets make a SAT of 1300 the min for an ATP, or ACT 29, two years of college math through Calc II, one year of calc based physics, and chem. Kinda like the military academy entrance requirements, that would put smarter piltos into the cockpit, if we could find them

Can we include grammar in there?