Free Seconds to Disaster: US Edition by Ray Ronan Page B

alcohol… when you put together the commuting
patterns, the pay levels… I think it's a recipe for an accident and that's what
we have here.”
     Colgan management insisted fatigue was not a
problem at their company.
    This remark is often echoed
over and over by aviation industry management worldwide. Because changes to
work patterns could cost money, and because first and foremost many airlines
are profit driven, safety comes second. The NTSB’s chairman, Rosenker, said of
Colgan Air: “I am concerned about the winking and nodding that I have seen in
some of the policies of the company, your company, and crew members, and I
don't believe it is only within your company or those crew members.”
    Other damning revelations were
made by the NTSB.
    The experience level in the
cockpit was also questioned. (An issue we will re-examine when we return to the
Air France Flight 447 crash later.)
    There is an informal rule in
commercial aviation known as the “Two thousand hour rule”. To ensure a balance
of experience, the combination of the two pilot's experience in that type of
aircraft should amount to at least two thousand hours. This would ensure inexperienced
pilots only flew with experienced pilots.
    Captain Dean Renslow and his co-pilot
Rebecca Shaw had less than a thousand hours on type between them.
    Was lack of training for the
pilots a factor? Why didn’t Captain Renslow have adequate training on the
aircraft's stall warning and recovery? (A situation, as we shall see, that was
similar to the lack of training experienced by the crew of Air France Flight
447.)
    The NTSB asked why the pilots
were trained for stalls in the simulator up to the point, but not including, when
the automatic stick-pusher actually pushed down on the control column, a
situation which meant Captain Renslow was not physically familiar with this
procedure of stall recovery.
    In response, a Colgan Air
manager said he would have to read about it.
    Was the FAA complicit? The safety
board was concerned as to why problems at Colgan Air were missed in previous
audits.
    A year before the accident an
FAA inspector, Christopher J. Monteleon, highlighted
deficiencies after a Colgan Air assessment. He was suspended and given a desk
job. [55]
    This revelation of the FAA’s
actions led New York Times aviation analyst Bob Miller to suggest: “Now
it's beginning to look like there's some complicity with the FAA and Colgan
Airlines in the operation and training of that aircraft.” [56]
    So what has changed?
    On October 14 th 2011, the US House of Representatives passed a bill forcing the FAA and
airlines to boost regional airline safety through enhanced training and hiring
requirements and by initiating fatigue countermeasures.
    “This bill raises the safety
bar for all US airlines,” said Capt. John Prater, president of the Air Line
Pilots Association, Int’l (ALPA). “Now, every airline will have an incentive to
hire the best-qualified candidates and provide their pilots with the
high-quality training they seek and require to maintain the highest possible
standard of safety.”
    While the US has begun to lead
the way in its recommendations, many of the dangerous practices highlighted
still exist in aviation internationally.
    As for Colgan Air, its
management faced no charges; in fact, they produced a report in which they put
the blame one hundred percent on the crew. It has to be asked: was the disaster
a damning indictment of a company’s reckless disregard for safety, ostensibly
in the pursuit of more profit?
    Might this mindset doom the
aviation industry to yet more tragic disasters? Perhaps, unless a fair and
equitable balance is found between cost, passenger and crew safety, and company
and shareholder profit.
    In the wake of the Colgan Air
crash of February 2009, experience levels of new pilots to the US industry were
increased from 250 hours of piloting a real airplane, to 1,500 hours, before
they could obtain a license to fly with an airline.