Safety v Money

[wms]

http://buzzpo.com/greedy-airline-executives-ask-congress-trade-safety-increased-profits/

 

[PBRstreetgang]

Alaska 261.......
Little jacks screw grease would have gone a long way.....

 

[chqflyer]

That's a hard hitting article. Too bad the main stream media hasn't caught on and plastered it everywhere. Lyndsey Lohan must be out clubbing sans panties.

 

[Raoul Duke]

That article is crap - requiring quantity of hours over quality of training is doing everyone a disservice. Both I am not aware of a single 121 accident in which the pilots had less than 1500 hours. I can think of several where better training could have averted the loss of lives - Colgan - Asiana - Air France - American

I would prefer to fly with a well trained pilot with 350 hours than any of the pilots on those flights - except Ho Lee Fuk. He is a righteous M. F.

 

[Flying Ninja]

Raoul Duke, it's not crap. While I agree with your assessment that quantity of hours does not necessarily mean quality, you have to understand something here. Not everyone gets quality training. There are plenty of mom & pop flight schools around the USA that get people their pilot certificates with minimal time to say nothing of quality training. They barely meet the PTS and that's good enough. Google "plane crashes" and you will invariably see a crash just about every day. I certainly don't see that in Part 121 or 135 operations because they have strict training and recurrent training requirements.

Those folks that get their pilot certs from non-academy/university programs do not come out the other end as aces. Some do, some don't. So you have to protect against the least common denominator. If you were to say that all airline pilots MUST get training from a flight academy/university to be hired, I'd agree with you. But until they stop hiring Part 61 quality-unsure pilots, the article is painting a real picture.

 

[jmreii]

Many of the current airline pilots nearing retirement are a mixture of ex-military or part 61/141 training. I am one of them in which there was no such thing as 4 year universities providing low time and degrees. I can tell you over my 37 years in aviation I have seen many airline accidents in the US alone whereas more training would have helped. Many pilots are benefiting from all of the airline accidents in the 60's, 70's, 80's, and 90's. It's always easy to make judgements after the deed is done!

 

[wms]

The 300-500 hour pilots we were hiring a few years ago were much better pilots than the 1500 hour padded-logbook types we are hiring now. Number of hours isn't the real issue but the fact that regional managements want to put economic priorities before safety. If they drop the 1500 hour rule, there will only be a limited number of 300 hour aero grads, and pretty soon we will be hiring 250 hour commercial pilots right out of training at the local FBO.

The issue needs to be addressed as a qualification issue and not as a numbers issue. Whether they have 250 or 1500 hours means nothing if they don't have training that prepares for the environment they will be flying in.

That's how the military is so good at training their pilots to fly with low time. From day one they are trained for the environment they will operate in. The only problem I see with some mil guys is adapting to the airline environment. Once they pass that hurdle they are exceptional.

 

[Raoul Duke]

Raoul Duke, it's not crap. While I agree with your assessment that quantity of hours does not necessarily mean quality, you have to understand something here. Not everyone gets quality training. There are plenty of mom & pop flight schools around the USA that get people their pilot certificates with minimal time to say nothing of quality training. They barely meet the PTS and that's good enough. Google "plane crashes" and you will invariably see a crash just about every day. I certainly don't see that in Part 121 or 135 operations because they have strict training and recurrent training requirements.

Those folks that get their pilot certs from non-academy/university programs do not come out the other end as aces. Some do, some don't. So you have to protect against the least common denominator. If you were to say that all airline pilots MUST get training from a flight academy/university to be hired, I'd agree with you. But until they stop hiring Part 61 quality-unsure pilots, the article is painting a real picture.

You are wrong about the least common denominator - the key to ensuring quality training is to put into place a rigorous check ride process that weeds out any unqualified candidates. Look at Medical Board Exams, CPA Exams and Bar Exams - none of these are based on passing the least qualified candidates - and many states (NY & CA) specifically make their exams hard enough that a majority of candidates fail. If this mentality was implemented training programs would be focused on quality not quantity. Come to think of it one branch of our government recognizes this and provides extremely rigorous training and then places pilots with around 250 hours in sophisticated aircraft - the military

 

[Flying Ninja]

I'm not wrong.

You suggested "IF this mentality was implemented..." But it is not. I see it all the time. DPEs passing people marginally because they don't want to be the guy with the reputation of being that guy who has a high failure rate. So they pass people that meets that bare minimum. You also have CFIs that teaches to DPE's play book.

WMS, like I said, if you only hire academy/university types you'll get the low time/high quality types. But you're not. You're also hiring crap from Joe's flying club.