Congress to Hold News Conference to Announce Air Safety Improvement 2:30EST

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I like it. Sim rides for applicants. I thought it was stupid when airlines started doing away with that.

The airlines were right with doing away with sim rides for applicants. The training process will weed out the bad pilots.

 

[Lear70]

IMHO I do not think that they can contribute the BUF crash to commuting. It was total lack of SA, and even poorer training. When reading the CVR transcripts and watching the data stream, it appeared to me that the FO reacted as one would in a go around, not an upset recovery.

That was my very first thought watching the accident sequence instrumentation animation online, that the airspeed was increasing, she thought they were in the recovery process, didn't see the unusual attitude, just the airspeed, and grabbed the flaps almost as if by instinct or rote habit rather than understanding what was going on...

Of course, we'll never know, but I can't think of any other reason for her to do that except thinking the stall recovery had been completed with the increased airspeed OR the tailplane icing scenario. Wish she'd have said why so the Colgan training department would know where the training shortfall lies.

 

[rumrunner300]

Highlights

Pilot training: ATP required 1500 hours min for hiring
Stall and upset recovery including stick pusher training
Pro standards - Pilot mentoring programs will be required
Electronic pilot record database will be required for record keeping it will go beyond the 5 years look back they have now
All Websites will be required to show which carrier will be operating the flight of the ticket you purchase
Requires the FAA to implement new rest rules. Also commissions the National Academy of Sciences to study commuting as it applies to fatigue

This is long over due. The current lack of Captains teaching FO's the way is a serious problem. On my second tour of the Regionals, I noticed a huge difference in the lack of mentoring on the part of captains. Everyone just wanted to get along and not tell someone they were F%*&$(%g up. How many times have you seen the simple act of REQUESTING a jumpseat completley F'ed up? My first turn (the hardcore Lakes method) was a stark difference. Guess which approach I think best.

Part of the answer is to clean it up from within. We can, and should, weed out the jerkweeds ourselves

Run it Btch

 

[BlackPilot628]

The pay question was raised by a member of the press. The answer was that Congress doesn't legislate pay directly but that with the ATP requirement market forces will bring the pay up. They also made a comment that low pay has deterred qualified pilots from the industry, and that it needs to change.

OK. Thank you.

 

[densoo]

New rules today?

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/nation/6596436.html

WASHINGTON — Current federal rules for how many hours pilots can be scheduled to work were written in an age of propellor-driven planes. Officials back then defined a reasonable work day for a pilot without a scientific understanding of fatigue and well before the modern airline industry. Finding ways to prevent pilot fatigue has stymied federal regulators and the airline industry for decades. The National Transportation Safety Board has been recommending since 1990 that rules on how many hours pilots can be scheduled to work be updated to reflect modern research and take into account early starting times and frequent takeoffs and landings.
On Tuesday, a committee made up of airline officials and union leaders is expected to deliver recommendations for updating the regulations. Although Federal Aviation Administrator Randy Babbitt has promised to vet those recommendations swiftly and turn them into a formal proposal by the FAA, the process will at a minimum take months to complete.
NTSB Chairman Deborah Hersman said she doesn't expect the suggestions to be offered Tuesday to address all the issues that are part of the fatigue problem, but she hopes they will supply a foundation. “You have to build all the rest of the house around it,” she said.
Some members of Congress, though, don't trust the FAA to finally come to grips with the problem. Besides forcing the agency's hand, a bill proposed by lawmakers would require airlines to use fatigue risk management systems — complex scheduling programs that alert the company to potential fatigue problems.
After the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee approved the bill earlier this month, Chairman James Oberstar ran through a list of the airline crashes in recent decades.
“The common thread running through all of it is fatigue,” said Oberstar, D-Minn. “We have many experiences of the flight crew, the cabin crew, who in cases of emergency were just so numb they couldn't respond instantly to a tragedy at hand.”
Linda Zimmerman, a retired Ohio teacher whose sister died in a 2004 regional airline crash in Kirksville, Mo., said the government's slow response saddens her.
“So many people have died and they haven't done anything about it,” Zimmerman said.
Corporate Airlines Flight 5966 was preparing to land on Oct. 19, 2004, when the twin-engine turboprop slammed into trees. The pilots and 11 passengers were killed. Two injured passengers survived by jumping from the plane moments before it was engulfed in flames.
The NTSB said the pilots failed to notice that their plane had descended too quickly because they failed to follow procedures and engaged in unprofessional cockpit banter. But the board also said the captain and first officer probably were exhausted — they were completing their sixth flight of the day, had been on duty more than 14 hours and had flown three trips the day before.
Studies show exhaustion can impair a flier's judgment in much the same way alcohol does. It's not uncommon for overtired pilots to focus on a conversation or a single chore and miss other things going on around them, including critical flight information. In a few cases, they've just fallen asleep.
Last year, two Mesa Airlines pilots conked out for at least 18 minutes during a midmorning flight from Honolulu to Hilo, Hawaii, as their plane continued to cruise past its destination and out to sea. Air traffic controllers were finally able to raise the pilots, who turned around the plane with its 40 passengers and landed it safely.
NTSB said that even though the pilots had not been working long that day, they were clearly fatigued. They cited the pilots' work schedules — the day of the incident was the third consecutive day that both pilots started duty at 5:40 a.m. — and said the captain had an undiagnosed case of sleep apnea.
FAA rules on how many hours an airline pilot may fly or be on duty before he must rest have been virtually unchanged for nearly a half-century, mainly because if airlines have to allow their crews more rest, they would have to hire more crews.
An FAA effort to tackle the issue in the mid-1990s foundered because airlines wanted concessions from pilots in return for reducing flying hours, and the pilots unions wouldn't go along. The agency proposed a new rule, but it has languished for years without final action.
NTSB's investigation of the crash of Continental Connection Flight 3407 on Feb. 12 near Buffalo, N.Y., killing 50, has spotlighted the long hours, low pay and long-distance commutes of regional airline pilots.
It's not clear where the captain of Flight 3407 slept the night before the crash, but it appears he may have tried to nap in a busy airport crew room where his company — regional carrier Colgan Air Inc. of Manassas, Va., which operated the flight for Continental — kept bright lights on continuously to discourage extended sleeping. The first officer commuted overnight from her home near Seattle to Newark, N.J., to make the flight to Buffalo.
Current rules say pilots can be scheduled for up to 16 hours on duty and up to eight hours of actual flight time in a day, with a minimum of eight hours off in between. They don't take into account that it is probably more tiring for regional airline pilots to fly five or six short legs in seven hours than it is for a pilot with a major airline to fly eight hours across the Atlantic to Europe with only one takeoff and landing.
One way to compensate would be a “controlled napping” policy, based on NASA research more than two decades ago. It found that pilots were more alert and performed better during landings when they were allowed to take turns napping during the cruise phase of flights. Other countries have adopted the policies, but the FAA has not.
According to Curtis Graeber, who ran NASA's fatigue research program for 10 years, some high-level officials worried that controlled napping would become the butt of jokes by late-night comedians.

OK to have crashes due to fatigue, but hire more pilots and butt of jokes--no way.

 

[embraerjetpilot]

diesel your avatar is very disrespectful and unpatriotic...

where was your nazi swastika during the bush admin?

 

[T3700]

Why would the Swastika apply to the Bush administration? Both the Communists and the Nazis were socialist systems of government. Both systems stifled dissent by calling it disrespectful and unpatriotic.

 

[snow-back]

There's going to be a lot more Parker time in peoples' logbooks to hit that 1500 mark.

 

[JoeMerchant]

diesel your avatar is very disrespectful and unpatriotic...

Are you serious?

where was your nazi swastika during the bush admin?

Another idiot that doesn't know which side of the political spectrum the Nazi's where on...

 

[Skippy]

The pay question was raised by a member of the press. The answer was that Congress doesn't legislate pay directly but that with the ATP requirement market forces will bring the pay up. They also made a comment that low pay has deterred qualified pilots from the industry, and that it needs to change.

no it wont--