Safety Officials Target Culture of Pilots
Tue Sep 7, 3:03 AM ET
By MATT VOLZ, Associated Press Writer
ANCHORAGE, Alaska - Joe Darminio loves nothing better that landing his plane on a 200-foot sandbar deep in Alaska's wilderness, where the twisted hemlocks and the occasional brown bear are the only company to be found.
<A href="http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/040907/480/akmd80109070629" target=_blank>AP Photo
Darminio, like the image of Alaska's bush pilots, is part Grizzly Adams, part Charles Lindbergh. Keeping up with that image has led to a few pilots taking unnecessary risks. There's even a name for it: bush pilot syndrome.
"There is a mystique about Alaska, and some people feel they have to live up to certain legends," said Jerry Dennis, executive director of the Medallion Foundation, which runs aviation safety programs.
Such programs aim to reduce the number of air accidents by changing the culture of the bush pilots. It's part of the goal of the Federal Aviation Administration (news - web sites) to reduce the number of air accidents in Alaska 20 percent by 2008.
John Duncan, the FAA (news - web sites)'s flight standards division director for Alaska, said programs that focus on pilot training, technology upgrades in the cockpit and the tower, as well as passenger education programs, all contribute to lowering the number of crashes.
The biggest obstacle has been breaking bush pilot syndrome, as well as reaching the large number of the state's recreational flyers, who may not be as up-to-date on their flying when they set off on weekend adventures in the state, he said.
"They're more of a challenge," Duncan said. "There are a lot of folks in Alaska who have their planes for very specific purposes. They want to go fishing in the spring, they want to go hunting in the fall, and that's all they use them for."
Alaskans rely on air travel far more than the rest of the United States. There are 14,230 miles of road in a state that covers 656,425 square miles, making the air a vital means of traveling and transporting goods that far-flung residents depend on to survive the harsh winters.
One out of every 59 Alaskans is a pilot and there are more than 290 commercial air carriers in the state.
This disproportionate reliance on air travel has resulted in a similarly disproportionate number of crashes. From 1990 to 1999, Alaska aviation accidents made up 39 percent of the nation's total air crashes, 24 percent of its fatal crashes and 21 percent of total air fatalities, according to the National Institute for Occupational Safety. Those numbers spurred the creation of the safety programs.
Tucked away in a small Anchorage strip mall storefront, pilots practice flying through engine failures and extreme weather on four flight simulators. That simulator time, otherwise prohibitively pricey, is free thanks to federal grants and run in tandem with the Medallion Foundation's programs.
Medallion's safety and risk assessment programs are for both independent pilots and air carriers. The carriers' program is a rigorous course that requires competency be shown in five key safety areas before earning a shield. More than 40 carriers are enrolled; just two have gotten the shield.
The private pilots' program is new and an adaptation of the carriers' program. So far, more than 400 pilots have signed on, with word of mouth its main form of advertisement.
A desire for more professionalism may be playing a role in the lower number crashes already recorded this year. The FAA's goal this year is for fewer than 125 crashes in Alaska; through July, 53 were recorded.
Jim LaBelle, regional director for the NTSB (news - web sites)'s Alaska region, says he's noticed a change in the bush pilot culture over the years, but would not attribute the reduction to the new safety programs. Because of the difficulty of tracking flight hours in Alaska, there could be a reduction in the amount of times pilots are spending in the air and regulators wouldn't know.
"We need to be somewhat cautious as we look at these numbers, there may be other reasons attributable to these declines," he said.
Darminio, the pilot, sees bush pilot syndrome as a problem with just a few fliers, and shouldn't be a black mark on the industry.
"Everybody has a taxicab story. But you get into the next one and you're fine," Darminio said. "To single out us pilots in Alaska and say we're cowboys and the FAA needs to single us out, it's not true."
Tue Sep 7, 3:03 AM ET
By MATT VOLZ, Associated Press Writer
ANCHORAGE, Alaska - Joe Darminio loves nothing better that landing his plane on a 200-foot sandbar deep in Alaska's wilderness, where the twisted hemlocks and the occasional brown bear are the only company to be found.
<A href="http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/040907/480/akmd80109070629" target=_blank>AP Photo
Darminio, like the image of Alaska's bush pilots, is part Grizzly Adams, part Charles Lindbergh. Keeping up with that image has led to a few pilots taking unnecessary risks. There's even a name for it: bush pilot syndrome.
"There is a mystique about Alaska, and some people feel they have to live up to certain legends," said Jerry Dennis, executive director of the Medallion Foundation, which runs aviation safety programs.
Such programs aim to reduce the number of air accidents by changing the culture of the bush pilots. It's part of the goal of the Federal Aviation Administration (news - web sites) to reduce the number of air accidents in Alaska 20 percent by 2008.
John Duncan, the FAA (news - web sites)'s flight standards division director for Alaska, said programs that focus on pilot training, technology upgrades in the cockpit and the tower, as well as passenger education programs, all contribute to lowering the number of crashes.
The biggest obstacle has been breaking bush pilot syndrome, as well as reaching the large number of the state's recreational flyers, who may not be as up-to-date on their flying when they set off on weekend adventures in the state, he said.
"They're more of a challenge," Duncan said. "There are a lot of folks in Alaska who have their planes for very specific purposes. They want to go fishing in the spring, they want to go hunting in the fall, and that's all they use them for."
Alaskans rely on air travel far more than the rest of the United States. There are 14,230 miles of road in a state that covers 656,425 square miles, making the air a vital means of traveling and transporting goods that far-flung residents depend on to survive the harsh winters.
One out of every 59 Alaskans is a pilot and there are more than 290 commercial air carriers in the state.
This disproportionate reliance on air travel has resulted in a similarly disproportionate number of crashes. From 1990 to 1999, Alaska aviation accidents made up 39 percent of the nation's total air crashes, 24 percent of its fatal crashes and 21 percent of total air fatalities, according to the National Institute for Occupational Safety. Those numbers spurred the creation of the safety programs.
Tucked away in a small Anchorage strip mall storefront, pilots practice flying through engine failures and extreme weather on four flight simulators. That simulator time, otherwise prohibitively pricey, is free thanks to federal grants and run in tandem with the Medallion Foundation's programs.
Medallion's safety and risk assessment programs are for both independent pilots and air carriers. The carriers' program is a rigorous course that requires competency be shown in five key safety areas before earning a shield. More than 40 carriers are enrolled; just two have gotten the shield.
The private pilots' program is new and an adaptation of the carriers' program. So far, more than 400 pilots have signed on, with word of mouth its main form of advertisement.
A desire for more professionalism may be playing a role in the lower number crashes already recorded this year. The FAA's goal this year is for fewer than 125 crashes in Alaska; through July, 53 were recorded.
Jim LaBelle, regional director for the NTSB (news - web sites)'s Alaska region, says he's noticed a change in the bush pilot culture over the years, but would not attribute the reduction to the new safety programs. Because of the difficulty of tracking flight hours in Alaska, there could be a reduction in the amount of times pilots are spending in the air and regulators wouldn't know.
"We need to be somewhat cautious as we look at these numbers, there may be other reasons attributable to these declines," he said.
Darminio, the pilot, sees bush pilot syndrome as a problem with just a few fliers, and shouldn't be a black mark on the industry.
"Everybody has a taxicab story. But you get into the next one and you're fine," Darminio said. "To single out us pilots in Alaska and say we're cowboys and the FAA needs to single us out, it's not true."
