[House Hearing, 111 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
REGIONAL AIR CARRIERS AND PILOT WORKFORCE ISSUES
=======================================================================
(111-41)
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON
AVIATION
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON
TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
JUNE 11, 2009
__________
Printed for the use of the
Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure
----------
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COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE
JAMES L. OBERSTAR, Minnesota, Chairman
NICK J. RAHALL, II, West Virginia, JOHN L. MICA, Florida
Vice Chair DON YOUNG, Alaska
PETER A. DeFAZIO, Oregon THOMAS E. PETRI, Wisconsin
JERRY F. COSTELLO, Illinois HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina
ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee
Columbia VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan
JERROLD NADLER, New York FRANK A. LoBIONDO, New Jersey
CORRINE BROWN, Florida JERRY MORAN, Kansas
BOB FILNER, California GARY G. MILLER, California
EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas HENRY E. BROWN, Jr., South
GENE TAYLOR, Mississippi Carolina
ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland TIMOTHY V. JOHNSON, Illinois
ELLEN O. TAUSCHER, California TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania
LEONARD L. BOSWELL, Iowa SAM GRAVES, Missouri
TIM HOLDEN, Pennsylvania BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania
BRIAN BAIRD, Washington JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas
RICK LARSEN, Washington SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West
MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts Virginia
TIMOTHY H. BISHOP, New York JIM GERLACH, Pennsylvania
MICHAEL H. MICHAUD, Maine MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida
RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania
GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California CONNIE MACK, Florida
DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois LYNN A WESTMORELAND, Georgia
MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio
JASON ALTMIRE, Pennsylvania CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan
TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota MARY FALLIN, Oklahoma
HEATH SHULER, North Carolina VERN BUCHANAN, Florida
MICHAEL A. ARCURI, New York ROBERT E. LATTA, Ohio
HARRY E. MITCHELL, Arizona BRETT GUTHRIE, Kentucky
CHRISTOPHER P. CARNEY, Pennsylvania ANH ``JOSEPH'' CAO, Louisiana
JOHN J. HALL, New York AARON SCHOCK, Illinois
STEVE KAGEN, Wisconsin PETE OLSON, Texas
STEVE COHEN, Tennessee
LAURA A. RICHARDSON, California
ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey
DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland
SOLOMON P. ORTIZ, Texas
PHIL HARE, Illinois
JOHN A. BOCCIERI, Ohio
MARK H. SCHAUER, Michigan
BETSY MARKEY, Colorado
PARKER GRIFFITH, Alabama
MICHAEL E. McMAHON, New York
THOMAS S. P. PERRIELLO, Virginia
DINA TITUS, Nevada
HARRY TEAGUE, New Mexico
(ii)
Subcommittee on Aviation
JERRY F. COSTELLO, Illinois, Chairman
RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri THOMAS E. PETRI, Wisconsin
PARKER GRIFFITH, Alabama HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina
MICHAEL E. McMAHON, New York JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee
PETER A. DeFAZIO, Oregon VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan
ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of FRANK A. LoBIONDO, New Jersey
Columbia JERRY MORAN, Kansas
BOB FILNER, California SAM GRAVES, Missouri
EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas
ELLEN O. TAUSCHER, California SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West
LEONARD L. BOSWELL, Iowa Virginia
TIM HOLDEN, Pennsylvania JIM GERLACH, Pennsylvania
MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania
DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois CONNIE MACK, Florida
MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia
HARRY E. MITCHELL, Arizona JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio
JOHN J. HALL, New York MARY FALLIN, Oklahoma
STEVE COHEN, Tennessee VERN BUCHANAN, Florida
LAURA A. RICHARDSON, California BRETT GUTHRIE, Kentucky
JOHN A. BOCCIERI, Ohio
NICK J. RAHALL, II, West Virginia
CORRINE BROWN, Florida
ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
JASON ALTMIRE, Pennsylvania
SOLOMON P. ORTIZ, Texas
MARK H. SCHAUER, Michigan
JAMES L. OBERSTAR, Minnesota
(Ex Officio)
(iii)
CONTENTS
Page
Summary of Subject Matter........................................ vi
TESTIMONY
Ayers, Dr. Frank, Chairman, Flight Training Department, Professor
of Aeronautical Science, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.. 45
Babbitt, J. Randolph, Administrator, Federal Aviation
Administration................................................. 13
Cohen, Roger, President, Regional Airline Association............ 45
Graeber, Ph.D., R. Curtis, Fellow, The Flight Safety Foundation.. 45
Lee, Hon. Christopher J., a Representatives in Congress from the
State of New York.............................................. 8
Loftus, John Michael, Families of Continental Flight 3407, Father
of Madeline Loftus/ Victim of Flight 3407 Crash, Former Pilot
with Continental Airlines...................................... 45
May, James C., President and CEO, Air Transport Association...... 45
Morgan, Daniel, Vice President, Safety And Regulatory Compliance,
Colgan Air, Inc................................................ 45
Prater, Captain John, President, Air Line Pilots Association,
International.................................................. 45
Rosenker, Mark V., Acting Chairman, National Transportation
Safety Board, Accompanied by Thomas E. Haueter, Director,
Office of Aviation Safety, National Transportation Safety Board 13
Scovel, III, Calvin L., Inspector General, U.S. Department of
Transportation................................................. 13
Slaughter, Hon. Louise M., a Representative in Congress from the
State of New York.............................................. 6
PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS
Capito, Hon. Shelley Moore, of West Virginia..................... 65
Carnahan, Hon. Russ, of Missouri................................. 67
Costello, Hon. Jerry F. Costello, of Illinois.................... 68
Johnson, Hon. Eddie Bernice, of Texas............................ 78
Lee, Hon. Christopher J., of New York............................ 82
McMahon, Hon. Michael E., of New York............................ 85
Mitchell, Hon. Harry E., of Arizona.............................. 89
Oberstar, Hon. James L., of Minnesota............................ 90
Slaughter, Hon. Louise M., of New York........................... 96
PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED BY WITNESSES
Ayers, Dr. Frank................................................. 99
Babbitt, J. Randolph............................................. 105
Cohen, Roger..................................................... 118
Graeber, Ph.D., R. Curtis........................................ 124
Loftus, John Michael............................................. 132
May, James C..................................................... 145
Morgan, Daniel................................................... 149
Prater, Captain John............................................. 158
Rosenker, Mark V................................................. 174
Scovel, III, Calvin L............................................ 206
SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD
Babbitt, J. Randolph, Administrator, Federal Aviation
Administration, additional testimony........................... 115
Boccieri, Hon. John, a Representative in Congress from Ohio,
letter to Colgan Air and their response........................ 30
Rosenker, Mark V., Acting Chairman, National Transportation
Safety Board, Accompanied by Thomas E. Haueter, Director,
Office of Aviation Safety, National Transportation Safety
Board, responses to questions from the Subcommittee............ 196
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
REGIONAL AIR CARRIERS AND PILOT WORKFORCE ISSUES
----------
Thursday, June 11, 2009
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Aviation,
Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure,
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:00 a.m., in
Room 2167, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Jerry F.
Costello [Chairman of the Subcommittee] presiding.
Mr. Costello. The Subcommittee will come to order. The
Chair will ask all Members, staff and everyone to turn
electronic devices off or on vibrate.
The Subcommittee is meeting today to hear testimony on the
regional air carriers and pilot workforce issues. I intend to
give a brief opening statement. I will call on the Ranking
Member Mr. Petri to give his opening statement or remarks. And
then I intend to call our first panel up, let Congresswoman
Slaughter testify quickly, and then we will come back to
Members to give their opening statements after your testimony.
We understand that Congresswoman Slaughter has a conflict and
has to be out of here by 10:30, so we are going to accommodate
your schedule.
I welcome everyone to the Aviation Subcommittee hearing on
regional air carriers and pilot workforce issues today. On
February 12, 2009, a Colgan Air Bombardier Dash 8, doing
business as Continental Connection Flight 3407, crashed en
route to Buffalo-Niagara International Airport. All 45
passengers and the 4 crew members died as well as 1 person on
the ground.
Mr. Mike Loftus' daughter Madeline was a passenger on
flight 3407. I am pleased he is here joining us today to offer
his testimony. On behalf of each and every Member of this
Subcommittee, I extend our sincere condolences to everyone as
well as the family members and friends who lost loved ones in
this tragic accident.
The National Transportation Safety Board held a 3-day
public hearing on May 12, 13 and 14 on the Colgan aircraft
flight crash 3407. The investigation is ongoing, and the final
conclusions and outcomes are not expected to be made for many
months. We need to let the NTSB investigation run its course.
We will hear from the NTSB this morning. However, the NTSB
hearing identified the need to closely examine the regulations
governing pilot training and rest requirements and the
oversight necessary to ensure their compliance, with a
particular focus on regional airlines.
While we do not have all the facts, I am concerned that
these issues could be symptomatic of larger trends driven by
economic pressures within the airline industry. We are in an
economic downturn that has placed enormous pressures on
airlines to cut costs. Airlines cannot control the cost of fuel
or the cost of the aircraft, but they can control what they pay
their pilots, how they train their pilots, what the training
will cost, and when the pilots can fly.
Due to cost concerns, major airlines have cut their own
domestic capacity and have outsourced air transport services in
many cases to the lowest bidder, to smaller, lower-cost
regional airlines, and then they keep the passenger ticket
revenue. Approximately 90 percent of regional airline
passengers travel on flights that are scheduled, processed,
marketed, ticketed and handled by major airlines through code
share arrangements. To win the contract to fly for the major
carriers, the regional airlines have gone to great lengths to
provide their services at the lowest possible cost.
With today's economic and outsourcing business practices,
pilots with decades of experience are laid off from the major
carriers, but cannot afford to work for one of the regional
carriers because they are faced with starting over as a first
officer making less than $25,000 a year.
The economic incentives to outsource to cheaper contractors
must not outweigh the value of having experienced pilots in the
cockpit. Today regional airlines are viewed by pilots as an
entry-level stepping stone. They do not pay as well as the
major airlines, and they do not require as many flight hours to
get hired. However, regional airlines have been involved in the
last six fatal airline accidents, and pilot performance has
been implicated in three of these accidents. There must be one
level of safety between major and regional airlines mandated
rather than just recommended by the FAA.
I believe we need to take an industrywide look at
strengthening pilot training requirements. In theory, FAA
training programs certify that every airline, both regional and
major, train its pilots to the same standard. I think the FAA
regulations are too broad, and the minimums are too low. We
must find a solution to fix this so everyone is on the same
level, not just in theory but in practice.
I have requested that the inspector general for the
Department of Transportation review the FAA's regulatory
requirements for airline pilot training programs and report
back to this Subcommittee.
It is important to note that many of the training issues
that surfaced during last month's NTSB hearing are not new. We
have seen them surface in other accidents; for example, as a
result of the December 2003 Federal Express crash at Memphis
involving a pilot that failed numerous proficiency checks. The
NTSB recommended requiring airlines to establish remedial
training programs for pilots who have demonstrated performance
deficiencies.
In 2006, the FAA responded by issuing guidance recommending
that airlines implement remedial training programs. NTSB will
testify today that despite the FAA's recommendation, Colgan did
not have the remedial training program in place.
While I applaud the Obama administration's call to action
earlier this week, I do not believe that we can rely on
airlines to voluntarily comply with industry's best practices.
As we now know from testimony at the public hearings, Colgan
had not fully implemented industry best practice safety
initiatives, such as flight operational quality assurance
programs, before the accident. We need to require all regional
carriers to implement the best practice safety initiatives that
are common among the major carriers. Further, the major
carriers need to take more ownership of the regional carriers'
training programs and implementation of best practices.
I also want to have a frank discussion regarding airline
pilot pay. I have met with a number of pilots, a number of
groups. I understand their concerns that pay and benefits have
declined over the years due to bankruptcies, mergers,
acquisitions, oil prices, 9/11, failed labor negotiations and
furloughs. Airline pilots are highly skilled safety
professionals. They are responsible for people's lives. Airline
pilots deserve the respect that their profession once had, and
they should be paid far more than $25,000 a year, which is what
the first officer of Flight 3407 was paid.
Low pilot pay is symptomatic of other troubling pressures
and trends within the industry. Some regional airlines are
paying pilots the absolute minimum that the market will bear
with no relation to the lives they are responsible for or the
value or seriousness of the work they perform. It is
detrimental to the overall self-image and morale within the
airline pilot profession, which is reflective, in some
instances, by poor professionalism. While low pilot pay may
keep airline costs down, it does not serve the public well.
Moreover, low pay drives away qualified and experienced pilots.
There was a time when a high percentage of our commercial
pilots were former pilots in the U.S. military. That is not the
case today. Far fewer military pilots, when they retire, are
applying to the airlines when they retire because of the low
pay of the regional carriers.
The NTSB is also looking at fatigue with regard to the
Colgan accident. Fatigue has been on the NTSB's most wanted
list since 1990 and continues to be identified as an issue in
many accidents. The FAA has yet to update its rules governing
crew rest requirements taking into consideration the latest
research on fatigue. Nor has the FAA developed and used a
methodology that will continually assess the effectiveness of
fatigue management systems implemented by operators. This is
simply unacceptable. I have asked the inspector general to
conduct an extensive review of fatigue issues, and I look
forward to hearing how he intends to move forward with this
audit.
After this hearing I intend to draft legislation to address
some of the concerns and issues that we will discuss today.
Finally, this hearing is not intended to condemn the major
airlines or all regional carriers. It is intended to identify
problems in the system that need to be addressed to improve and
enhance safety.
Before I recognize Mr. Petri for his opening statement, I
ask unanimous consent to allow 2 weeks for all Members to
revise and extend their remarks, and permit submission of
additional statements and materials by Members and witness.
Without objection, so ordered.
At this time the Ranking Member Mr. Petri is recognized.
Mr. Petri. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for having
this important hearing. And in light of Representative
Slaughter's time pressure, and in light of the presence of our
Ranking Minority Member of the Full Committee, I ask that Mr.
Mica precede me.
Mr. Costello. The Ranking Member Mr. Mica is recognized.
Mr. Mica. Thank you.
First of all, I want to thank our Chairman Mr. Costello for
holding this meeting.
Mr. Petri and I have been concerned about the performance
and the accident rates of our regional commuter carriers. We
have some incredible expertise on this panel. Mr. DeFazio was a
distinguished Ranking Member. You have had the Chair. We have
another Ranking Member Mr. Ehlers, and Mrs. Capito have a great
wealth of expertise on this panel. And I think that we have a
responsibility to make certain that if there are deficiencies
in the operation of our regional carriers, that actions are
taken to correct those deficiencies.
I understand, too, that Ms. Slaughter is here, and our
sympathies certainly go out to Ms. Slaughter and those from the
Buffalo area or anyone who lost loved ones in the tragic
Buffalo commuter airline disaster and to the others who have
suffered similar losses.
We will hear from our FAA Administrator. He has only been
on the job less than 2 weeks. However, I have to express my
concern that FAA as an agency has been immobilized, and for 2
years we haven't had an Administrator. When I came to Congress,
we had five Administrators in about 6 years. We put in place a
mechanism to change that. It is difficult enough when you have
an agency with an administrator, let alone an agency that is so
important and critical to safety, and not have a confirmed
administrator in place. So I can't criticize in any way Mr.
Babbitt. He has only been on the job 2 weeks, and these
problems have festered the last several years.
There is something wrong when we have planes, commuter
planes, falling out of the sky. There is something wrong when
we have repeated accidents. The Chairman just spoke. We have
had six very serious loss-of-life, fatal commuter crashes. The
potential factors outlined as the reasons why we had those
crashes all dealt with pilot performance. Well, I won't say all
of them, I will say at least four of the six.
Now, we instituted when I became Chairman a risk-based
system. And certainly that risk-based system would be geared to
looking at where we have had problems. And if we have commuter
airline crashes, and we have pilot performances as a key issue
in creating some of the factors that led to those crashes, the
system--there is something wrong in not addressing those
deficiencies.
It is my understanding that--and let me go back to--I think
Peter was involved in this--our FAA reauthorization, the last
time, I think that Mr. DeFazio will recall that we saw NTSB
come forward with recommendations that were not instituted.
They would make a recommendation, and then it would just sort
of fall off the cliff or would stay on the shelf. Now, we put
into law a mechanism that required that those recommendations
be reported back to Congress that were not addressed, and I
found out yesterday that the DOT and FAA were to have had, in
February, to Congress, their recommendations on deficiencies in
aviation, and we still don't have those before Congress. There
is either something wrong with what we passed, and we need to
make certain that those recommendations do come to Congress,
and that either FAA, DOT or the administration, someone, acts
on those. And when you have repeated fatal crashes, and we have
a risk-based system, we have a requirement for reporting those
incidents, and nothing is done, there is something wrong.
So, Mr. Chairman, you just said that we will pass
legislation, and I will join you. Let me say in closing also
the FAA and, I think, the Chairman of NTSB has said he has
recommended that we open up the performance records of pilots
beyond 5 years. Now it is limited to 5 years, and then a pilot
has to give a waiver, and I understand the regionals often
don't even ask for that. But those records must be opened on
their performance and I think also on their training and their
certification to be behind the yoke of an aircraft or in the
pilot or copilot seat so that we know that people with
qualifications and training are there; we know that where we
have identified deficiencies in a pilot's ability to perform or
to be certified, that that is known.
So I will join you, our side of the aisle, Mr. Petri and I
will join you. If we have to take corrective action by
legislation, we will put in place whatever measures. If we have
to go back, Mr. DeFazio, and change what we put into law to
require that those recommendations by NTSB are not just left on
the shelf--and I was stunned that FAA and DOT still have not
gotten what should have been in February before us, to us, and
this is June.
So again, in the spirit of cooperation, a spirit that we
need to stop this carnage in the air, I look forward to working
with you and pledge our support.
Thank you. I yield back.
Mr. Costello. I thank the Ranking Member for his comments,
and we will make two comments concerning points that you made.
The last reauthorization, I don't necessarily think we need to
change the law. I think we know what the problem is. It is
within the FAA. And we need to address that, and we hope that
the new Administrator will, in fact, address the issue. I
understand, and when he testifies, we will have an opportunity
to talk to him about what he intends to implement as far as
tracking NTSB recommendations at the FAA and reporting to
Congress.
Secondly, we do intend to work in a bipartisan manner to
address a number of issues that need to go into legislation. We
have a number of recommendations by the NTSB. We have other
recommendations that are made by the FAA to the airline
industry that have not been complied with. As opposed to making
recommendations, we need to put some of these things into law
so they are mandatory and not discretionary.
So with that, I would recognize and ask Congresswoman
Slaughter to please come to the table, and we will be joined by
Congressman Christopher John Lee as well.
And at this time, the Chair will recognize the first panel,
hear from Congresswoman Slaughter and Congressman Christopher
John Lee. And then after their testimony, we will go back to
opening statements by any Member who wants to make an opening
statement.
At this time the Chair recognizes the Chairwoman of the
Rules Committee in the House, the distinguished gentlelady from
the 28th District of New York, the Honorable Louise Slaughter.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. LOUISE McINTOSH SLAUGHTER, A
REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW YORK
Ms. Slaughter. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, and I thank you
for your gracious invitation to be here this morning. I did
hear so much in both opening statements that made me feel quite
elated, if we can use that word on such a sad day.
It is a very important hearing that you are having today,
and some of the family members from the Buffalo crash are here,
and among them are Karen and Susan Eckert. sisters of a woman
named Beverly Eckert, whom we all learned to know and to love,
because Beverly lost her husband in 9/11 and was one of the
family members working there, and devoted herself to airline
safety.
This Committee is very special to me. It was the first
Committee I sat on. I sat where Mrs. Capito is, and Peter
DeFazio and I were elected the same day, and he is very special
to me all by himself. Peter and I have a caucus. You may not be
surprised to learn it is called the "cantankerous caucus."
There are only two of us on it.
As we are all acutely aware, one of the worst plane
accidents in the recent U.S. history occurred earlier this year
on the night of February 12 just outside of Buffalo, New York.
We lost so many lives that night, and we continue to pray and
to think often of the people whose grief and loss are
immeasurable. And we have to learn from this tragedy in order
to prevent the future loss of life.
Now, beginning on May 12, the NTSB conducted 3 days of
hearings on Colgan Air Flight 3407, and we were shocked and
saddened about what we learned about regional carriers. There
are still many unanswered questions and lots of work to be done
to ensure the safety of passengers and crew when traveling on
regional airlines, and as Members of Congress, it is our
responsibility and our mission.
Much of what we have learned about regional airline
industry training and standards is shocking. And we want to
immediately attack that, and I am so pleased to hear this
morning that that will be done. The regional airlines' training
programs are clearly inadequate. It is unacceptable for flight
academies such as Florida-based Gulfstream Academy, to
advertise that they can train amateur pilots who have
aspirations to fly for a major carrier in only 3 months for as
much as $30,000 in tuition.
Passengers deserve only the best-trained pilots, and I
commend Secretary LaHood and Administrator Babbitt for recently
ordering the FAA inspectors to ensure that regional carrier
training programs are complying with the Federal regulations.
And we must demand that all pilots receive extensive and
thorough training as well as enforce the high standards for the
regional carrier industry. I think "enforce" is the operative
word here.
I was amazed to learn how little pilots are paid upon
graduating from flight academies. The first officer was paid
$16,000 a year. If that isn't a minimum-wage job, I really
don't know what is. In addition to that, she had to pay her own
way back and forth to work. I have learned, and I believe this
is so, that if she was not flying, her wages did not take place
at all. She was not paid for anything except flight time. Any
time to and from work was not considered.
And there is a joke that goes around among some of the
pilots. It says what do you call a regional first officer
without a girlfriend? And the answer is homeless. Now, that is
not funny when regional carriers account for half of the
country's scheduled airline trips.
Thousands of lives are at stake daily, and these pilots
must be compensated properly to ensure that we attract the
people who can fly the planes adequately, and this leads me to
the issue of fatigue, which you have spoken of. It was
certainly a major factor in Buffalo's tragedy because both
pilots had had no rest. They were not paid sufficient money to
be able to get a hotel room or stay overnight to sleep, and
slept sometimes in their cars or in the pilots' lounge, where I
understand it is perfectly illegal, but they do it nonetheless.
Now, it is no wonder that they were found sleeping in the crew
lounges. But we must demand compliance with the orders that we
have for sufficient rest in order to remain alert and react
properly. I am one of the thousands of people who believe that
that was complied with and just assumed that it was.
But I was stunned to learn that the pilots of Flight 3407
had failed five tests, including two with Colgan. Even more
disturbing is that the airline was not aware of the three other
failures, and Mr. Mica referred to that, something we
absolutely cannot allow. We must have more transparency. It is
unacceptable. We have to provide the airlines access to a
pilot's entire flying history, and it should be made readily
available on the Internet. Passengers shouldn't have to guess
whether a pilot is competent and rested and even well, because
I understand that in some cases they don't get to take off a
day if they are ill. They fly, or no pay.
Like many of my colleagues, I fly weekly on regional
airlines. I purchase my ticket from U.S. Air, but the plane is
operated and maintained by Wisconsin Air. The information is
not provided at the point of purchase, let alone prior to
boarding the plane, and I am sure that 90 percent of the
persons believe they are flying U.S. Air. We have to require
airlines to disclose to consumers the operator of the flight
prior to purchasing their ticket so they have the opportunity
to make well-informed choices.
Most recently an FAA investigation accused Florida-based
Gulfstream Airlines of overworking their pilots and breaking
airline maintenance rules. And former pilots for Gulfstream
report watching seeing pieces fall from their airplanes and say
that records were routinely changed or even erased. They had
even complained that they had installed on those planes
unapproved air conditioner compressors. These types of
practices must come to an end, and regional airlines must be
held accountable for negligence.
I think we have only scratched the surface of "anything
goes," and safety can sometimes be second to profit. We must
address these critical issues to ensure our safety when
boarding a regional airline. It is our responsibility and duty
to help restore the public's faith through introducing strong
and meaningful legislation which has to require compliance with
standards, and an FAA that can assure us that they are able to
certify those standards are being met. There are many charges
of a too cozy relationship between airline owners and the FAA.
And I would like to mention, too, I would like to see a
little more teeth in what the NTSB does with their painstaking
work and the recommendations. Now, I understand they are only
recommendations, and they may or may not be followed. I would
like to see a little bit of work done on that as well. I know
that they do not want to be regulators, nor do we want them to
be, but the suggestions that they make after the kind of work
they do should be given a priority. Lives depend on it.
Thank you all, Members of this Committee, for allowing me
to come today, and I look forward to working with you with some
legislation that can make us all feel safer and bring to some
fruition the dream of the families and the parents of the
children who died on that airplane that it won't be happening
again. Thank you very much.
Mr. Costello. The Chair thanks you. And we will say that we
will work closely with you. We have had a meeting earlier in
the week, and last week we discussed a number of issues, your
interest in bringing forth legislation. We intend to work
closely with you, and we thank you for your testimony.
Ms. Slaughter. I feel a great deal of comfort with your
expertise and your knowledge of this and your intent in seeing
this through. I thank you very much for that, Mr. Costello.
Mr. Costello. Thank you.
The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from the 26th
District of New York, the Honorable Christopher John Lee.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. CHRISTOPHER JOHN LEE, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW YORK
Mr. Lee. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am pleased, actually
being a resident of Clarence, New York, and being directly
affected--actually where the plane went down was roughly 3
miles from where I raise my family. So this obviously has a lot
of meaning to me; and directly knowing three individuals who
were on that Flight 3407. So I am grateful to have the
opportunity to speak here today on an issue that is not only
important to my constituents, too, but all constituents
throughout the United States.
As major airlines have confronted significant challenges in
maintaining market share, regional airlines have continued to
expand their operations and now, as we know, account for
roughly half of the Nation's commercial flights. That includes
Continental Connection Flight 3407, which departed Newark, New
Jersey, on the night of February 12, 2009, carrying 49
passengers and crew en route to Buffalo, New York.
One of those passengers was a 24-year-old woman by the name
of Madeline Loftus. Madeline was returning to Buffalo that
night to play in an alumni hockey game at Buffalo State
College, and though she had purchased a Continental ticket, she
was actually flying on a plane operated by Colgan Air, by a
crew hired and trained by Colgan. Madeline died that evening
when flight 3407 crashed in Clarence Center New York, just 5
miles from the Buffalo-Niagara airport. All 49 passengers on
board and 1 resident on the ground were lost.
Today this panel will hear from Madeline Loftus' father
Mike, who served for more than 20 years as a pilot on
Continental Airlines. Mr. Loftus wants nothing less than to
ensure that a tragedy like this never occurs again. And I thank
the Committee for allowing him to appear before you today on
behalf of the family members of victims 3407.
I also had the opportunity to meet many of the families,
and the part that has astounded me is how resolute they are on
having something positive come out of this horrible tragedy.
And I commend all of them.
As you know, the need for further congressional scrutiny of
this accident became rapidly apparent when recent NTSB hearings
revealed a number of troubling findings, including the crew's
lack of hands-on training and experience in the plane's safety
systems. For instance, the crew was trained in the activation
of the stick shaker, but not in the next step, activation of
the stick pusher.
Questionable handling of failed check rides by Colgan Air,
specifically despite the fact that the pilot of flight 3407 had
failed two general aviation check ride failures. We now know
that Colgan did not attempt to access this information. And I,
for one, believe the FAA should have made this a mandatory
requirement, not a voluntary requirement.
And nonessential cockpit conversation below 10,000 feet is
in violation of the FAA's sterile cockpit rule.
These revelations have left the families to struggle with
the harsh reality that this horrific tragedy may have been
preventable and far more questions than answers about how all
the regional carriers operate.
For my part I am concerned that a culture of cost cutting
has pervaded the regional air carriers leaving passengers at
risk. That is why I have joined with my colleagues from west
New York to push for an independent, comprehensive review of
all commercial pilot training and certification programs. The
Government Accountability Office study would look at every
aspect of these programs, including required training hours,
training practices for new technologies, and adequacy of
responses to unsatisfactory check rides.
Additionally, we are interested in learning what
information is required to be provided by pilots on their job
applications, and what ability air carriers now have to verify
that data. And while we are pleased that the House has given
the go-ahead for this analysis in the form of an amendment to
the recently approved FAA reauthorization legislation, it is
clear that we should not wait any longer to proceed.
I am submitting into the record today a letter
Congresswoman Slaughter, Congressman Higgins and I have written
to the GAO instructing them to begin their work at once. I urge
this panel to lend its support to this bipartisan effort so we
can expose information that will inform future steps taken by
Congress to improve pilot training practices and ensure
passenger safety and confidence.
I also urge this panel to hold the FAA accountable and
demand that it does its part to strengthen oversight of the
regional air carriers and implement the NTSB's most wanted
safety recommendations on flying in icy conditions.
Finally, like many west New Yorkers, as I mentioned, I knew
several people who lost their lives on Flight 3407, including a
personal friend of mine, an expectant mother whose child would
have been just 2 or 3 weeks old at this point in her life.
I just want to say that I am very proud of the first
responders, the volunteers and all members of my community for
coming together to provide support to those who have been
affected by this horrible tragedy.
Again, I am grateful for the Committee's time here today,
and I hope this hearing is just the beginning of a prolonged
effort to ensure justice is brought forward and increased
safety for our families. So thank you.
Mr. Costello. The Chair thanks you for your testimony, and
we look forward to working with you on legislation.
The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Oregon Mr.
DeFazio.
Mr. DeFazio. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for
convening this important hearing, and hopefully we will get
results and changes this time. The scheduling of this hearing
caused me to go back and review some of my history with this
issue starting in a 1992 hearing on these issues of crew
training and fatigue. And Mr. Babbitt actually testified during
that hearing. And I will be following up on some of the issues
he raised at that time now that he is in charge and hopefully
can fix the problems that he identified at that time, which I
believe led directly to the crash of this plane and the deaths
of many innocent people.
We need to set some standards here. We have got to stop the
race to the bottom. We have an industry that is in economic
distress, and we have a race to the bottom. We have been
talking about this for a very long time, and it is time for
action.
I just find it extraordinary, Mr. Chairman, that the FAA
has set such a low bar for minimum standards, 250 hours for a
first officer. Now, of course, it is up to the airline to
determine how many more hours they would require for initial
hire, and it is also, unfortunately, up to the airline to
determine what kind of training they will provide to that
person once they are hired, although the FAA does oversee or
confirm the training that the airline would provide.
None of that is right. We need to set a much, much higher
minimum bar. And that will get to the root of a lot of these
problems. This is a fairly serious undertaking, flying an
airplane, particularly in difficult conditions. We would think
that it would be perhaps looked at as seriously as training to
be a nail technician. In the State of Oregon, you have to have
600 hours of training to be a nail technician. You have to have
1,350 hours to be a barber, but you can't use chemicals. And
then when we get to the point of being able to color people's
hair, it requires 1,700 hours of training. But the FAA has set
the bar at 250 for pilots, and they leave it up to the these
regional airlines to determine how many more hours they might
require for an initial hire.
That has to change. And if we set the bar a good deal
higher, then, of course, compensation will follow. If
compensation follows, we won't find young women living with
their parents in Seattle, red-eyeing across the country, and
sleeping in the crew room, and then trying to fly a plane in
conditions that she did not have adequate experience to deal
with. This has got to stop. It has to stop. And this hearing
has to be the beginning of that change at last.
We will hear from the NTSB. The issue of crew fatigue has
been on their most wanted list for 19 years. The FAA proposed a
rule in 1995. We don't have it yet. Why? I am told, well, there
are big disagreements between the pilots and the airlines. And
we will hear from the Regional Airline Association. They will
say no pilot would ever fly fatigued. All they have to do is
call in and say it. But Mr. Babbitt testified in 1992, no, in
fact, there is intimidation, harassment and firing if you call
in fatigued.
Now, if they can't agree on a rule, it might be because the
pilots think that the current rules cause people to fly
fatigued, and the airlines say, well, this would cost us money.
So if we want to follow the rules that the airlines say they
follow, which is it is always up to the pilot, then the
airlines should have conceded to the pilots, we should have
adopted a fatigue rule. And we shouldn't be sitting here today
with this hearing. But we are.
So, Mr. Chairman, I hope this is a new beginning with a new
administration, a new Administrator, and a very assertive
Chairman that we finally get these things done. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
Mr. Costello. The Chair thanks you, Mr. DeFazio, and now
recognizes the Ranking Member of the Subcommittee Mr. Petri.
Mr. Petri. Thank you again for holding this hearing, Mr.
Chairman. And I just need to emphasize that our Committee's
highest priority is aviation safety, and that comes before
everything else. And that is what we are attempting to--that
emphasis is what we are attempting to underline by having this
hearing and to actually do what we can to actually improve
safety.
It is only fair to say that the American aviation industry
is, in fact--especially the large commercial aviation
industry--is about the safest in the world. But that is no
reason for relaxing, and it is no reason for not reviewing and
improving procedures everywhere that we can. And I know we are
committed to that goal.
According to the Department of Transportation Office of
Inspector General, since 2003, there have been six fatal
commercial passenger accidents, and all have involved regional
carriers. So it is imperative that we fully explore the issues
related to the safety of regional carriers as we are doing in
this hearing. Four of those, as has been pointed out, where
evidently, at least in part, pilots' performance as a potential
factor in the fatal accident.
The National Transportation Safety Board has made
recommendations on icy conditions, runway safety and recording
devices. And in light of their recommendations, I look forward
to hearing from today's witnesses. It is important that we hear
from those who are directly involved, and that the witnesses
have the opportunity to share their expertise and insights on
how to address this important but complicated aviation safety
issue.
A number of my constituents have contacted me, and I will
be asking some questions that they have suggested as well,
because this is something that affects, obviously, the
traveling public and all of us as citizens.
With that I will put my full statement in the record. I
just want to thank Mr. Loftus in particular, who is here
testifying on behalf of the Families of Continental Flight
3407. I know that your and other members' insights will be
important to this Committee, and we appreciate the effort you
have put into being here today.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Costello. The Chair thanks the Ranking Member.
I would remind Members that we have 11 witnesses scheduled
to testify. We have our first panel of two witnesses. Members
have gone, the Members panel, and now we have a government
panel. So I would encourage Members, strongly encourage
Members, if they would, to submit their statements for the
record. If, in fact, someone wants to make an opening
statement, feels strongly about it, I will recognize you. But I
would strongly encourage you to put statements in the record so
we can get to our witnesses and have ample opportunity for all
of you to be able to ask them questions.
With that, the Chair now will go to our panel of witnesses
before us. The Chair now recognizes Mrs. Schmidt, who wants to
be recognized.
Mrs. Schmidt. Mr. Chairman, thank you, and I will be brief.
I want to thank you for holding this hearing. I want to thank
our Ranking Member of the Full Committee Mr. Mica, and our
Ranking Member of the Subcommittee Mr. Petri for this important
hearing.
So much has been said about Continental Flight 3407. It is
a tragic and heartbreaking accident. And I think it is
important that we do not prejudge what the NTSB is going to say
when it completes its investigation. But regardless of the
conclusions it winds up drawing, Congress and the airline
industry should take a hard look at regional carriers. And
based on what we have learned so far, we really need to review
pilot experience, fatigue, training and the safety standards.
I also think it is fair to recognize that air travel is the
safest it has ever been, and still I am sure my colleagues in
the industry would agree that one preventable accident is just
too many. And so if we can take some reasonable measures and
precautions to make air travel even safer, it is not that we
should, we absolutely must.
I look forward to hearing from everyone, but, most
importantly, Mr. Loftus, who lost his wonderful 24-year-old
daughter Madeline, because, you see, I was touched in my own
district. I represent two wonderful people, Robert and Denise
Perry of Loveland, Ohio, whose 27-year-old son Johnathan was
among the passengers. And he was their love and their life, and
that mother goes to bed every night with empty arms simply
because pilots made a mistake.
I continue to be awed by the strength and the perseverance
of folks like Robert and Denise and their hope when they came
to me and said, "Make something positive come from this." It is
our duty to do that. And so I want to thank you, Chairman
Costello, for giving us this opportunity to make something
positive out of this. And I look forward to this important
hearing.
Mr. Costello. The Chair thanks the gentlelady, and now we
will introduce our panel of witnesses before us: The Honorable
Mark Rosenker, who is the Acting Chairman of the NTSB. He is
accompanied by Mr. Tom Haueter, who is the Director, Office of
Aviation Safety, with the NTSB; Mr. Randy Babbitt, who is the
new, as you heard, FAA Administrator; Mr. Calvin Scovel, III,
who is the inspector general with the U.S. Department of
Transportation.
As all of you know, gentlemen, you have testified before
the Subcommittee before. We would make you aware that your
entire statement will appear in the record. We would ask you to
summarize your statement.
And the Chair now recognizes the Honorable Mr. Rosenker.
TESTIMONY OF MARK V. ROSENKER, ACTING CHAIRMAN, NATIONAL
TRANSPORTATION SAFETY BOARD, ACCOMPANIED BY THOMAS E. HAUETER,
DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF AVIATION SAFETY, NATIONAL TRANSPORTATION
SAFETY BOARD; J. RANDOLPH BABBITT, ADMINISTRATOR, FEDERAL
AVIATION ADMINISTRATION; AND CALVIN L. SCOVEL, III, INSPECTOR
GENERAL, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION
Mr. Rosenker. Good morning, Chairman Costello, Ranking
Member Petri and distinguished Members of the Subcommittee. I
would like to begin my testimony with a short summary of the
NTSB's investigative actions to date regarding the accident
involving Colgan Air Flight 3407. I want to emphasize this is
still an ongoing investigation. There is significant work left
for our investigators. My testimony today will therefore be
limited to those facts that we have identified to date, and I
will steer clear of any analysis of what we have found so far
and avoid any ultimate conclusions that might be drawn from
that information.
On February 12, 2009, at about 10:17 p.m. Eastern standard
time, Colgan Air Flight 3407, a Bombardier Dash 8 Q-400 crashed
during an instrument approach to runway 23 at Buffalo-Niagara
International Airport in Buffalo, New York. The flight was
operating as a Part 121 scheduled passenger flight from Liberty
International Airport, Newark, New Jersey. The 4 crew members
and 45 passengers were killed. The aircraft was destroyed by
impact forces and postcrash fire. One person in a house was
also killed, and two individuals escaped from the house with
minor injuries.
On May 12, 2009, the NTSB commenced a 3-day public hearing
on the accident in which we explored airplane performance, cold
weather operations, sterile cockpit compliance, flight crew
training and performance, and fatigue management. I would like
to note that all of these issues are pertinent to every
airline, operation, major air carriers as well as regional air
carriers.
Our investigation continues, and every day we make
progress.
Now I would like to discuss some of the Board's important
safety recommendations. The NTSB has issued numerous
recommendations to the FAA on stall training, stick pusher
training, pilot records, remedial training for pilots, sterile
cockpit, situational awareness, pilot monitoring skills, low-
air-speed alerting systems, pilot professionalism and fatigue,
and aircraft icing. Two of these issue areas, aircraft icing
and human fatigue, are on the Board's most wanted list.
While there are currently more than 450 open
recommendations to the FAA, on January 12, the Agency took
action on some of those recommendations when they published an
NPRM addressing pilot training and qualifications. The notice
also proposes to amend issues including the requirement of
flight training simulators and traditional flight crew member
training programs and adding training requirements in safety-
critical areas.
The NPRM addresses issues raised in numerous safety
recommendations that the NTSB has issued to the FAA. In 1995,
the NTSB issued recommendations to the FAA to require an
airline to evaluate an applicant pilot's experience, skills and
abilities before hiring the individual. The following year
Congress enacted the Pilot Records Improvement Act, PRIA. PRIA
required any company hiring a pilot for air transportation to
request and receive records from any organization that had
previously employed the pilot during the previous 5 years;
however, PRIA does not require an airline to obtain FAA records
of failed flight checks. The Board has recognized that
additional data contained in FAA records, including records of
flight check failures and rechecks, would be beneficial for a
potential employer to review and evaluate. Therefore in 2005,
the NTSB issued another recommendation to the FAA to require
airlines, when considering an applicant for a pilot position,
to perform a complete review of the FAA airman records
including any notices of disapproval for flight checks.
In response to this NTSB recommendation, the FAA stated
that notices of disapproval for flight checks for certificates
and ratings are not among the records explicitly required by
PRIA, and, therefore, to mandate that air carriers obtain such
notices would require rulemaking or a change in PRIA itself. To
the credit of the FAA, on November 7, 2007, an advisory
circular was issued informing carriers that they can ask pilots
to sign a consent form giving the carrier access to any notices
of disapproval.
The recommendation is currently classified ``Open-
Acceptable Alternate Response.'' However, to date, the FAA has
not taken rulemaking action or asked Congress to modify the
Act.
Mr. Chairman, this concludes my testimony, and I will be
glad to answer any questions.
Mr. Costello. The Chair thanks you, Mr. Rosenker, and now
recognizes the FAA Administrator Mr. Babbitt.
Mr. Babbitt. Thank you, Chairman Costello, Ranking Member
Petri and the distinguished Members of the Subcommittee. Thank
you for inviting me here today to discuss regional air carriers
and pilot workforce issues.
Let me begin by saying that we at the FAA deeply mourn the
tragic loss of Colgan Air Flight 3407. This is an agency that
is dedicated to aviation safety, and any loss that we incur is
felt keenly by all of us. Likewise, our sympathies also go out
to the families and loved ones of the passengers and crew of
Air France flight number 447.
This is my first appearance at a hearing before this
Subcommittee since I was sworn in as the FAA Administrator, and
I want to advise you that I certainly look forward to working
with you, Mr. Chairman, and the entire Subcommittee as we move
forward. We have a very ambitious agenda ahead of us at the
FAA, and I intend to work very hard to achieve those safety
goals.
Since the mid-1990s, there has been a requirement for one
level of safety that all regional carriers must operate under
the same rules and at the same level of safety as the major
airlines, their counterparts. And I am proud to say when I was
president of the Airline Pilots Association, I led the efforts
in coordination with the FAA to make those changes. All air
carriers that operate today with 10 or more seats are required
to operate at and meet the same level of safety standards and
the same level of safety oversight across the board.
When the NTSB conducted its public hearing last month on
the Colgan Air crash, several issues came to light regarding
pilot training and their qualifications, pilot crew fatigue,
and the consistency of safety standards and compliance between
air transportation operators. Given that the NTSB has not yet
concluded its investigation, I cannot speak at this point on
the potential findings. My written testimony does provide
details, which I will submit, as to the current requirements
with regard to pilot training, pilot records and flight-time
and duty-time limitations.
But I can tell you that on Tuesday, Secretary LaHood and I
announced that we have ordered FAA inspectors to focus their
inspections on training programs in order to better ensure that
all airlines, including regional airlines, are complying with
Federal regulations. We are also taking the step of gathering
representatives from the major air carriers, their regional
partners, aviation industry groups and labor here in
Washington, D.C., on June 15 to participate in what we are
calling a Call to Action, and the sole focus will be to improve
airline safety and pilot training. This review will address
those issues, pilot training, cockpit discipline and other
issues, that are associated with flight safety.
And while we await the findings of the NTSB's investigation
of the Colgan Air crash, the Secretary and I believe that there
is no time to lose in acting on the information that we already
have and is available to us. So on June 15, our summit is
designed to foster actions-- immediate actions-- and voluntary
commitments that we will get from the carriers. And they are to
focus on four key areas: First, air carrier management
responsibilities for crew education and support; second,
professional standards and flight discipline; third, training
standards and performance; and fourth, mentoring relationships
that exist or should exist between mainline carriers and their
regional partners.
The Colgan Air accident and the loss of Air France 447
remind us that we can never rest on the laurels of our safety
record, and that we must remain alert and vigilant and aware of
the challenges that are in our aviation system. We have got to
continue to work to enhance the safety of this system. This is
a business where one mistake is one mistake too many.
So, Chairman Costello, Ranking Member Petri, Members of
this Subcommittee, this concludes my prepared remarks. I would
be happy to answer any questions.
Mr. Costello. The Chair thanks you for your testimony and
now recognizes the inspector general for the Department of
Transportation General Scovel.
Mr. Scovel. Chairman Costello, Ranking Member Petri,
Members of the Subcommittee, we appreciate the opportunity to
testify today regarding regional air carriers and pilot
workforce issues.
Safety is a shared responsibility among FAA, manufacturers,
airlines, and airports. Together, all four form a series of
overlapping controls to keep the system safe. The past several
years have been one of the safest periods in history for the
aviation industry; however, the tragic accident in February of
Colgan Flight 3407 underscores the need for constant vigilance
over aviation safety on the part of all stakeholders.
Last month the NTSB held a preliminary hearing into the
cause of the Colgan accident in which some evidence suggested
that pilot training and fatigue may have contributed to the
crash. As a result, Mr. Chairman, you requested that our office
begin an extensive review into some of the issues that were
brought to light during that hearing. We have already begun
work on this review.
Today I would like to discuss some of the operational
differences between mainline and regional air carriers and then
move on to weaknesses in FAA's oversight of the aviation
industry.
First, it is important to note that regional flights
represent one-half of the total scheduled flights in this
country. And regional airlines provide the only scheduled
airline service to over 400 American communities. Therefore, it
is critical that there truly be one level of safety for all
carriers.
Our preliminary audit work has identified differences in
regional and mainline carrier operations and potential
differences in pilots' training programs and level of flight
experience. For example, regional carriers typically perform
short and medium hauls to hub airports. This could result in
many short flights on the same day for a pilot with a regional
carrier. Multiple studies by agencies such as NASA have
concluded that these types of operations can contribute to
pilot fatigue, but FAA has yet to revise its rules regarding
crew rest requirements.
As for FAA's role in determining whether both mainline and
regional air carriers have developed programs to ensure that
pilots are adequately trained and have sufficient expertise to
perform their responsibility, we find these issues to be
particularly acute for regional carriers. As you know, the last
six fatal accidents involved regional carriers and the NTSB
cited pilot performance as a potential contributory factor in
four of those accidents.
Moving to my second point, weaknesses in FAA's oversight of
the aviation industry. Our past work has shown serious lapses
in FAA's safety oversight and inconsistencies in how many of
its rules and regulations are enforced. The hearing in April
2008 before the Full Committee highlighted such weaknesses in
FAA's risk-based oversight system, known as ATOS, and air
carrier compliance with safety directives.
While our work identified safety lapses in Southwest
Airline's compliance, many stakeholders were concerned that
they could be symptomatic of much deeper problems with FAA's
air carrier oversight on a systemwide level.
In 2002, we reported that FAA needed to develop national
oversight processes to ensure that ATOS is effectively and
consistently implemented. Then in 2005, we found that
inspectors did not complete 26 percent of planned ATOS
inspections. Last year we reported that weaknesses in FAA's
implementation of ATOS allowed compliance issues in Southwest's
maintenance program to go undetected for several years.
Our most recent, and still ongoing, work has determined
that lapses in oversight inspections were not limited to
Southwest. FAA oversight offices for seven other major air
carriers also missed ATOS inspections. Some had been allowed to
lapse well beyond the 5-year inspection cycle. Additionally,
FAA's national oversight of other facets of the industry, such
as repair stations, has struggled to keep pace with the dynamic
changes occurring in those industries.
Mr. Scovel. These facilities are rapidly becoming air
carriers' primary source for aircraft maintenance.
We have found that FAA relies heavily on air carriers to
provide oversight of those repair stations. However, that
oversight has not always been effective. In 2008, we reported
that air carriers did not identify all deficiencies at repair
stations and did not adequately follow up on deficiencies
identified to ensure that problems were corrected.
This is of particular concern for regional carriers who
rely heavily on repair stations. According to data provided to
the Department, regional carriers send as much as half of their
maintenance to repair stations. NTSB's investigation into the
crash of another regional carrier, Air Midwest Flight 5481 in
January, 2003, identified serious lapses in the carrier's
oversight of outsourced maintenance.
Let me conclude, Mr. Chairman, by reiterating that we will
continue to do our part in advancing the Department's goal of
one level of safety. While all stakeholders are committed to
getting it right, including FAA, who has made progress in
improving aspects of its safety oversight, our work continues
to identify significant vulnerabilities that must be addressed.
This will require actions in areas FAA has already targeted for
improvement, as well as other areas where FAA will need to
revisit differences in standards and regulations and rethink
its approach to safety oversight.
That concludes my statement, Mr. Chairman. I would be happy
to address any questions you or any other Members of the
Subcommittee might have.
Mr. Costello. Thank you, Mr. Scovel.
And as I mentioned earlier that I had a meeting with
Administrator Babbitt on some of these issues, I also had a
meeting earlier this week with Mr. Scovel.
The Chair now recognizes the distinguished Chairman of the
Full Committee, Chairman Oberstar.
Mr. Oberstar. Thank you for holding this hearing, Mr.
Chairman, your continuing vigilance over aviation safety and
the tight rein you are holding on government--and
accountability on government agencies and on the airlines
themselves.
As I said many, many times, safety begins in the corporate
board room. You need a corporate culture of safety permeating
the industry. And where that lapses, then the FAA, the National
Transportation Safety Board, the Inspector General, and our
Committee and our counterpart Committee in the other body must
maintain vigilance.
And we have done that. We had a hearing on regional safety
when I chaired this Subcommittee 15, 17, 18 years ago. I think
you testified at that hearing, Captain Babbitt. And the NTSB
has time again issued recommendations and directives--not
directive but recommendations for action, and those need to be
implemented, and we need the Transportation Safety Board's
continued vigilance.
You mentioned as I walking in, Administrator--Captain
Babbitt, flight deck management and procedures, and I hope that
is a matter we can explore further in the course of this
hearing. But it is one that you need to review.
Again, I hope that this meeting you have called that there
will be renewed interest in pairing in the flight deck of the
pilot and the first officer, matching experience levels,
revisiting the experience levels of those who serve on the
flight deck in regional airline operations, assuring that there
is compatibility and comparability of service.
All too often we have seen in the past and in the tragedy
that occurred in Hibbing in my district, we had a very--a
relatively senior captain and a very junior first officer who
was intimidated by his captain and reluctant to speak up and
say, are you--as we know from the voice recorder, didn't say
anything while going through a fast rate of descent.
We need to have that ability of that flight deck crew to
talk with each other if--for one who sees something that is not
quite appropriate to speak up and have--feel the freedom to
speak up and understand that he or she has the responsibility
to speak up. And I see Chairman Rosenker nodding in agreement,
and I appreciate that.
In the 1990s, the Department and the FAA concurred in the
industry on a one level of safety. You can't have one for one--
Part 121 carriers, Part 135 carriers, and for the air taxi
services and for the rest. We need one level of safety. You can
begin your tenure as Administrator by ensuring that one level
of safety is revived, alive, and well, invigorated and
enforced. That is what we are looking to you to do.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Costello. The Chair thanks you, Mr. Oberstar.
Mr. Scovel, you indicated in your testimony--you heard me
mention in my opening statement that, in theory, we have this
one level of safety for both the majors and the regionals, but,
in practice, it does not exist. And is that what I heard you
say when you testified?
Mr. Scovel. That is correct, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Costello. What is your recommendation on what should be
done in order to take it from theory to practice to make
certain that we in fact do have one level of safety for the
majors as well as the regionals?
Mr. Scovel. Mr. Chairman, the phrase ``one level of
safety'' to me expresses FAA's, the Department's and the
Congress' goal or aspiration for one standard of safety. But,
clearly, the record tells us that we haven't reached it yet.
One level implies level. It implies attainment or achievement.
We are not there yet.
In order for FAA to get there, it needs to pay greater
attention, more consistent attention to its safety oversight
programs. As our reports to FAA and to this body including our
testimony last year in the Southwest hearing have indicated
with the ATOS program, while the risk-based oversight approach
to safety is highly recommended and we commend FAA for
undertaking that effort, its implementation has been
problematic. Our forthcoming report will show that, in addition
to Southwest, seven other major carriers have had problems
completing their required safety attribute inspections on a 5-
year cycle as required by ATOS regulations.
Regionals were recently brought into the ATOS program. Our
discussions with FAA inspectors responsible for implementing
ATOS at the regionals show that they are struggling with it.
It seems to them that ATOS has been designed to foster
safety or account for safety programs in the majors but seems
to have less applicability to the regionals. In May, reported
on ASAP, sir, a voluntary disclosure reporting program made
available for aviation industry employees so that they can
report safety problems without fear of administrative or
disciplinary action by their employers or FAA.
The majors have told us that ASAP is a key element of their
safety efforts.
We reported that ASAP is a missed opportunity for FAA
because it is not accumulating and analyzing the data from ASAP
for itself with respect to regionals, we have found that 37
percent of the larger regional carriers do not participate in
ASAP. If it is a valuable program for the majors, we think it
might also be a valuable program for the regionals. We
understand it is a voluntary program for carriers, but perhaps
with greater FAA attention and accommodation more regionals
might be persuaded to join.
Risk-based oversight, sir. With regard to repair stations,
we have testified repeatedly in this Committee and also over in
the Senate that FAA's implementation of its new risk-based
oversight system when it comes to outsourced maintenance
remains ineffective. In order to have risk-based oversight, you
need to know where the risk is so you can target your scarce
inspector resources. In order to do that, you have to acquire
data. FAA has been unable to date to devise a mechanism that
will induce the carriers to provide data on what maintenance
has been conducted, how much, and where it has been performed
so that FAA can follow up.
In addition, sir, and in closing, I would commend FAA to
look carefully to the outstanding NTSB recommendations, all of
which will provide a further roadmap in order to achieve the
goal of one level of safety.
Mr. Costello. Thank you.
Administrator Babbitt, I was pleased when the President
selected an Administrator who was a commercial pilot, who has
testified before this Subcommittee, who has worked with the
Congress on many issues in the past, who has knowledge of many
of the issues that we are trying to address here in this
hearing. However, you are taking over an agency that has a
history of becoming more of a bureaucracy than an agency that
performs well and responds well to demands of the Congress and
the public. So you have a big job ahead of you.
I know that Secretary LaHood and you announced this
initiative and that you will be meeting with the regionals and
I assume the majors as well. Tell us about what you hope to
accomplish and tell us how you intend to move forward after the
meeting.
Mr. Babbitt. Yes, sir.
Mr. Chairman, the purpose here--and let me echo a statement
that the Inspector General made: I concur completely with his
observation that we have one standard of safety; and we do, in
fact, have one standard of safety. What we are seeing, however,
and this tragic accident has put a pretty bright light on the
fact that we don't have an equivalent level of safety.
We find that some of the carriers are doing a remarkably
good job and should be commended for operating well above the
bar, well above the minimums required. We know, for example,
that one of our major carriers has it as a policy that anyone
that provides service to them via a capacity purchase agreement
or other commercial arrangement, they require them within a
given period of time, that they must have a FOQA program. They
must have an ASAP program. They must have a mentoring program.
So the purpose of us bringing these folks together next
week is twofold. Number one, let us get down, sit in a room,
and be very candid about what are those best practices, what
are people doing that is above and beyond and superlative to
what is required by the statutes and by the regulations. And
let us learn what those best practices are; and then,
secondarily, can we implement those quickly? And I intend to
use the bully pulpit of this job to the extent that I can to
bring people into compliance, which has to be voluntary at this
point.
But my motivation is that by the time the NTSB finishes its
good work--and it will be good work--We will learn from it. But
that is 6 months from now. And if I acted the morning they gave
me the recommendations, I am 6 months from promulgating a
regulation I can put in force. That is a year from now, and
that is too long.
So what I would like to do is take the knowledge that we
have already learned from their preliminary investigation, take
the knowledge from the industry. People want to do this right.
This industry, I marvel at how well it does try to perform. Let
us gather that best information. Let us provide mentoring
programs.
I can tell you from my own experience as a new pilot, my
first trip--I never flew in an airplane where I didn't sit in
the right seat with someone who had at least 10 years of
experience. That was a wonderful finishing touch to my primary
education as a pilot. What I really learned was in line
operation from senior captains, people who mentored me. And
that is the way the process works.
We have to question how much mentoring is going on, how
much professional standards exist when a carrier expands very
rapidly. And we can't critique them for it. It is a reality.
You get a new contract, you buy five new airplanes, guess what?
You hire 50 new pilots.
How do we mentor them? Maybe we need to look to the major
carriers and let them share that senior experience with these
younger pilots, build that professionalism in and move forward.
That is our goal in the short term.
Mr. Costello. What concerns me and I think concerns a lot
of people in this room today is the voluntary versus mandatory.
And I understand what you are talking about, rule making, but I
believe we need to look at some of these issues and mandate
them through legislation. And I hope you will work with us on
that.
We intend to move forward to address some of these issues.
I mentioned earlier in my opening statement that I intend to
look at legislation. Mr. Mica indicated he would like to do it
in a bipartisan way. So we are going to work together, Mr.
Petri and I and Members of this Subcommittee.
My experience has been too often when you leave it up to
the airlines or you leave it up to many agencies that it
doesn't get done if it is voluntary, if there are no penalties,
if there is no mandate. So that is something that we will be
looking at, and we will be looking to take your recommendations
as well as Mr. Scovel and Mr. Rosenker.
One final question----
Mr. Oberstar. Mr. Chairman, before you leave that point,
may I interject a thought?
Mr. Costello. Please.
Mr. Oberstar. From that very chair, at that table, a dozen
plus years ago, maybe 15, 18 years ago, Don Engen, then
Administrator of FAA, had a hearing that we conducted on
closing of overwing exits on 747 aircraft which was happening
unknown to the Administrator because of the then stovepiping of
the regional offices of FAA.
Don Engen, after hearing the testimony of flight attendants
who had been engaged in rescue efforts on 747 where the only
surviving exit was the overwing exit, said in his very opening
remarks, Mr. Chairman, I have sent a message to the airlines
and to Boeing now. I can't order them to do it. To do so will
take rule making, will take weeks, but I have sent a
handwritten note to them right from this table to stop the
process now.
That is the kind of decisiveness--you mentioned that you
were going to do this. You are not going to wait for the rule
making. And you said bully pulpit. You have more than a bully
pulpit. You have power. The airlines know they will go against
you only at their peril, and we are here to support that
initiative, and we expect you to take that kind of leadership.
Mr. Babbitt. I appreciate both your confidence and your
support. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Costello. Final question, Mr. Babbitt. We have other
Members who want to ask questions, and I will come back
hopefully in a second round.
You have heard mentioned earlier that the NTSB
recommendations as they come to the FAA, there is a report that
is supposed to come to the Congress. It is overdue. It was due
in February of this year, and we are now in June. I would ask
you to go back in to make certain that that happens, to get it
done, and get that report to us.
Finally, tell us--you had indicated that you were setting
up a procedure to look at all of the NTSB recommendations and
to respond to them. Tell us about the procedure that you intend
to implement.
Mr. Babbitt. Yes, sir.
First, at the risk of ratting out my boss, that is a DOT
report I believe you are referring to. We have turned over our
portion of that in a timely fashion. But I will look into that,
and I understand why. I think there are other modes that have
to report into that.
With regard to the NTSB recommendations, I have done a sort
of a quick background research, and I will bring you up to date
with that.
Let me repeat what I put forward in my confirmation hearing
and what I have announced in hearings in another body. It is
fairly straightforward, and I hope it is fairly simple and
helpful. And that is the NTSB does great work, and they
investigate, and they do the full range of their investigation.
We should take those--and I intend to take those--
recommendations very seriously.
And what I have said and will fulfill is we will act upon
those recommendations in one of three ways.
We will adopt them as written as soon as practically
possible, number one. There may be occasions where we have
another regulation in place or we might have some reason to
suggest modification to it. We will adopt it as modified and
notify you what modifications we made to the recommendation.
And if for any reason we were not to adopt one of their
suggestions, I will advise you why we didn't adopt that
regulation and the rationale behind it, in concert and
coordination with the NTSB.
Let me just recap for you the results. We have indicated, I
think, that there are approximately 450 recommendations. That
sounds like an astounding number. It doesn't sound quite so
astounding when you realize that we have adopted almost 5,000
of the ones they have recommended; and of those 437, a number
of them are general aviation related. But when we get all
through boiling it down, many of them are in regulatory format
now. They are working their way through the process of NPRMs. A
number of them we have gone back to the NTSB and working in
coordination with them.
And I would note for the record that in my first week and
before this hearing was even scheduled I reached out to both of
these gentlemen to better coordinate and ask for meetings. It
is my goal to work closely with them. They are valuable sources
of information, as well as the Subcommittee's staff and team.
So I am looking for input from all sources. But when we get
all through boiling this down, there is about 130 left. And,
again, I want to know why didn't we adopt them; and I will give
you a rationale why we did not.
Mr. Costello. The Chair thanks you and now recognizes the
Ranking Member of the Subcommittee, Mr. Petri.
Mr. Petri. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
As you consider all these suggestions--and I assume some
are from the top down and some are from the bottom up and some
are from each side, probably--I wondered if I could just--it
would help me to understand how you go through the process a
little bit if I could extract from a letter of a constituent
and ask you to respond, if anyone on the panel who could care
to, to this particular constituent's suggestions for some
changes.
I am a captain based at Reagan National in Washington,
D.C.--but the person lives in Wisconsin--I fly a 50-passenger
regional jet. I am a 30-year-old pilot, husband, and father of
one. I am a professionally experienced pilot intent on spending
my career flying airplanes.
I have a few concerns about the FAA regulations governing
rest and duty times for airline pilots, specifically regional
airline pilots. I have suggestions for you.
Duty time needs to change from 16 hours for a regional
airline pilot to 12 hours. This change would force the airlines
to schedule pilots to fly either during the morning or evening.
This will help combat fatigue, which I experience every week. I
work out at my hotels, and I pay $2,700 a year for a crash pad
in Crystal City to ensure proper rest for myself.
Even with all my precautions, I cannot keep up with the
continually degrading schedules. When you are in the airplane
for 14 hours a day, you can't help but get tired toward the end
of the day. The 30 hours in 7 days need to change to 30 hours
in 10 days.
During the past 11 days, I spent one night at home and flew
34 hours. This may not seem like a lot of flying, but flying on
the east coast is very demanding, the responsibility to ensure
safe travel of 50 people into the world's busiest airports. I
can't see myself being able to do this job for very long, given
my current workload.
Regional airline pilots should be restricted to six legs of
flying a day. At present, we are limited to 8 hours scheduled
flying, but we are not limited to how many times we fly.
Limiting the number of legs a day will increase safety,
decrease fatigue and stress. It is very hard to focus after six
legs of flying in a day.
I also wish we could force airlines to build commutable
schedules, but that is a pipe dream.
Do you have any reaction to his two suggestions about
taking into consideration legs as well as hours and limiting
the time to 12 instead of 16 hours?
Mr. Babbitt. I will start off and try to address some of
the points made.
One of the things that I consider a top priority--having
sat here and testified before the good Chairman Oberstar a
number of years ago on this very issue-- one of priorities that
I have is to address the flight time/duty time issue. I think
one of the difficulties that your constituent has pointed out
is the fact that he has selected an arbitrary number.
I think one of the things that we are learning--we are
learning it from NTSB, we are learning it from the Inspector
General, we are learning it from NASA--we have science today to
help us with flight time/duty time calculations; and I think we
need to really look at this in the light of science.
There is a big difference between an arbitrary 12 or 14 or
whatever the number is, 16 hours. Let us use 14. If you and I
went to work together at 7:00 in the morning, we would be tired
at 9:00 at night, but we would be okay. But if we went to work
at 9:00 tonight, at 11:00 tomorrow morning I wouldn't want to
drive in a car with you, much less fly in an airplane. So there
is a big difference between what 12 or what 14 hours are we
measuring.
There is also a difference when pilots fly. We have rules
where you can go beyond with supplemental crews long-haul
flights.
And your constituent is exactly correct and I concur with
the idea that multiple landings--it is one thing to fly one 8-
hour leg from here to Paris; it is another thing to fly 7 hours
and make 14 stops and never leave the State of Florida. And I
have done that.
So I know the difference in measuring arbitrary numbers.
And I think, as much as I respect what he is trying to achieve,
I think we really should bring science and use the best
knowledge and create rules that keep people from being
fatigued.
The FAA did, I think, a very credible job of trying to
address this by having a fatigue seminar. And I think we should
go the next step now. Let us take what we have learned in those
seminars and let us apply it to proper regulations that will
help people, help them become aware of when they are fatigued.
That is another leg to it.
Thirty in seven versus thirty in ten, I put it in the same
box. One 30 hours, that is Detroit to Narita. Those are two
long legs, two landings. That is not the same as 30 hours in
the Northeast, shooting approaches to 200 feet in snow. So,
again, we need to measure what we are doing and apply the
proper parameters for the proper conditions.
Six-leg limit. I think when we looked at flight time/duty
time a number of years ago, that was absolutely one of the
considerations where you might have--you can say it is okay to
fly 10 hours a day with one leg. But if you begin to have
multiple legs, maybe you then reduce the cap. And I think he is
probably on target there. I am just not sure what the limits
should be at this point.
Mr. Rosenker. If I could add to Administrator Babbitt's
position, he is exactly on target. We believe that fatigue is a
most insidious condition. Many people are unaware they have
this condition; that is the frightening aspect. They make poor
judgments which many times results in accidents.
Back in 1995, I believe the FAA attempted to make some
changes through an NPRM. It never came to fulfillment.
The reality is that it has been about 50 years since the
hours of service has truly been examined. The aviation industry
has changed significantly in 50 years. The kinds of aircraft we
fly and the kinds of training we get, distances we travel, they
are different than they were 50 years ago.
So it is time to make changes, and I look forward to
working closely with the Administrator, and I applaud him on
his work and his quick action to improve the industry. We
continue to talk about it; we must never, ever begin to
segregate the regionals from the majors. It is the entire 121
industry that we are dealing with, and we don't make
recommendations to segments of the industry. Virtually all of
our recommendations go to the industry as a whole. We attempt
to ensure that the standard for the entire industry is
maintained at the safest level possible. We have a safe
industry today, and our objective is to make it even safer.
Mr. Costello. The Chair thanks you, Mr. Petri; and I will
recognize the gentleman from Oregon, Mr. DeFazio.
Mr. DeFazio. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Administrator Babbitt, ever hear the term "pilot pushing"?
Mr. Babbitt. Yes, sir.
Mr. DeFazio. Do you recall or have you reviewed your 1992
testimony regarding intimidation, punitive firing, disciplinary
action by airlines when pilots reported fatigue?
Mr. Babbitt. I haven't reviewed my testimony, but I have a
recollection of it, sir.
Mr. DeFazio. You have the recollection. You said you could
bring in an amazing parade of people to testify that this went
on in the industry.
Mr. Babbitt. Yes, sir.
Mr. DeFazio. But then you said here, people want to do the
right thing. I guess I have trouble reconciling pilot pushing,
intimidation, punitive firing, discipline for pilots who are
trying to follow the law and report themselves fatigued and
people want to do the right thing.
I would say there are some in the industry who want to do
the right thing; and our current rules, unfortunately, go to
the lowest common denominator. Good old Frank Lorenzo dragged
down a lot of the industry. You can't compete with people like
that, because they are at the bottom of the barrel.
We need to have a uniform higher standard. I just can't
believe we still have a standard of 250 hours minimum
qualification for a first officer when a nail technician takes
600 hours in Oregon. There is something wrong there. And if the
FAA said, no, we are going to make it 750 or whatever would be
appropriate, then people can still operate above that, and
there would be some that would do that or who are more
attractive employers or who pay better, but at least you
wouldn't have the bottom-of-the-barrel operators taking the
people with 250 hours and paying them just absurdly low wages,
so bad that they have to live with their mother, and then stick
them up there in difficult conditions.
Can't we consider those sorts of things? I didn't see it in
the list of the NTSB's recommendations. I don't know if it has
been recommended to establish a higher initial bar.
Mr. Babbitt. Let me, if I may, address two issues.
You raised, first, the pushing. And I would say we have a
number of carriers who do that, and the problem is the
knowledge level of some of the new pilots.
I can tell you right now a senior pilot in a major carrier,
if he was fatigued, he would simply say to the company, listen,
we have been on duty 10 hours. It is the wrong 10. We are all
tired. We are going to the hotel. And nobody would blink. But
you take a pilot who has been 3 months with a brand new
carrier, not even covered by any representation, has no----
Mr. DeFazio. That is one of the keys which you pointed to
in 1992, if they don't have protection.
Mr. Babbitt. That is correct. And they have no whistle-
blower protection. They worked very hard to get this job; and
they are not about to say, oh, gee, I am a little tired today.
I am not going to fly. They may be exhausted, but they are
reluctant, and that is an area we all have to focus on.
Second, the quality in the 250 hours, if I could, let me
just politely suggest that there may be a difference. Two
hundred and fifty hours in the airplane has also been matched
by hundreds of hours of ground school training, simulators, all
of that type of stuff. We are not talking about 8 hours in a
classroom.
Mr. DeFazio. But some--and we had Ms. Slaughter reference
one particular outfit that does training in Florida and pushing
people through pretty quickly. The quality of that time varies
tremendously. And it just seems to me--and some of the regional
airlines require considerably more than 250 hours for hiring,
no matter how much ground school people have had. And I am just
suggesting that is something additionally that needs to be
reviewed.
Did NTSB have any----
Mr. Rosenker. Mr. DeFazio, I think you are making an
excellent point. We don't know yet if 250 hours is the
appropriate number. It may well be that something will come
from the Colgan accident which may involve a re-examination of
minimum requirements. At this point, we have not made any
recommendations addressing that issue.
Another point that I would like to make is that hours don't
always ensure pilot proficiency. Many times at the Board we
have investigated terrible accidents that have been made by
high-hour pilots-- those with 12,000 to 15,000 hours-- where
the pilot has just made an incredibly amateurish mistake--for a
host of reasons.
So, we cannot necessarily equate number of hours flown with
high levels of proficiency and skill. We would always want to
take a look at the programs they are going through, the
continual proficiency checks that they must pass before we can
say that these pilots are highly qualified.
Mr. DeFazio. I appreciate that.
You did point out in your testimony on the subject of
fatigue that Colgan had changed their handbook to say--previous
editions said, flight crew members should not attempt to
commute to their base on the same day they are scheduled to
work, but their current edition at the time of this accident
said, a commuting pilot is expected to report for duty in a
timely manner.
And I would note that the first officer took the red-eye
from Seattle. I have taken that flight. By 6 or 7 o'clock the
next night, I am not at my best just making judgments about
editing things in the office or something else, let alone
flying a plane in icy conditions. I would say it is a fairly
similar circumstance, and I have done a lot of this.
I am just trying to point out that some operators are going
to take the flexibility that they are given and use it to dive
for the bottom. Then they can offer a lower cost product. And
the other people who are trying to do a better job and say you
should never, ever take the red-eye, come here and fly the same
day, spend the day in the crew lounge and fly the same day--If
some other operator is doing that, you know, they are probably
going to have to pay them more than $23,000 a year so they
don't have to live with their mother in Seattle and fly across
the country.
I mean, I am trying to point out that we need to
establish--I think it is the FAA's duty to establish a higher
bar, and then no one is at a competitive disadvantage. And I
don't think you will find a single person who would be
unwilling to pay an extra 2 or 5 bucks for a ticket because we
raised the bar and Colgan Air isn't out there dragging
everybody down or somebody else like them--not just to pick on
them. Our good old Frank Lorenzo and everybody else that has
tried to do that in the industry.
That is all. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Costello. The Chair thanks the gentleman and now
recognizes the Ranking Member of the Full Committee, Mr. Mica.
Mr. Mica. Welcome, Mr. Babbitt. I am so pleased that we do
have a confirmed administrator and one with your high
credentials. I guess we are going to lose Mr. Rosenker as the
Chair. So I compliment you on the great job you have done at
NTSB and will continue to do. But we appreciate your past
service and your beginning service, Mr. Babbitt.
A question for both of you. Well, actually, it will include
our representative IG panelist. Are our regional airlines safe,
Mr. Babbitt?
Mr. Babbitt. Yes, they are.
Mr. Mica. Thank you.
Mr. Rosenker?
Mr. Rosenker. I would agree with the administrator. They
are, sir.
Mr. Mica. Mr. Scovel?
Mr. Scovel. Mr. Mica, I have no evidence that they are
unsafe.
Mr. Mica. Thank you.
Well, I think that is important. I guess 25 percent of the
passengers I guess--or flights rather--flights, not
passengers--are on regional airlines. We need to reassure the
public.
And it is my understanding you testified at the beginning--
I heard your remarks, Mr. Babbitt--that we had the same
standards in place for both our large commercial aircraft as
also for our regional carrier; is that correct?
Mr. Babbitt. Yes, sir. They all operate under Part 121, and
they meet those standards.
The point I was making was----
Mr. Mica. I think we have to reassure the public. And, of
course, as I point out to folks, that today more than 100
people will die in automobile accidents and every day, 365 days
a year. So while we have had some tragedies, we have an
incredible record with our large commercial aircraft
domestically.
And I have a quick question about the problem that we may
have with the Airbus in a second. But, Mr. Rosenker, you
recommended--or NTSB recommended I think more than 3 years
ago--I have got a copy of the recommendation--that we actually
open up some of the records beyond 5 years of the performance.
I was shocked to hear that, again, that some of the mechanism
that I thought Mr. DeFazio and I put in place some years ago to
continue to call those recommendations to the attention of both
Department of Transportation, FAA and also Congress--because,
ultimately, we are responsible if an agency isn't acting. Do I
need to change what we put in law? What is the problem with not
getting your recommendations acted upon, Mr. Rosenker?
Mr. Rosenker. Sir, I wish I had a silver bullet to be able
to tell you that, if we did this, all of the NTSB
recommendations would be enacted.
Mr. Mica. But I have your recommendation here. I have the
number of flights that--commuter flights that we have lost with
fatalities. Obviously, there is some disconnect. Because I said
earlier, I have commuter--an unfortunate number of fatal
crashes. You have a recommendation. Four of the six
recommendations related to pilot performance. And I can't get a
simple recommendation from you into a rule or a law.
Mr. Rosenker. If we are talking about some open recs that
we have related to the Colgan Buffalo accident, I can share
with you approximately where we are. The stick pusher
recommendation and the upset training are going to be handled
and implemented when the NPRM is fully implemented. It is being
covered by the January NPRM.
Mr. Mica. What about the records recommendations?
Mr. Rosenker. We are talking about the records. That has
been on our recommendation list for a number of years.
Mr. Mica. 2005?
Mr. Rosenker. 2005, yes, sir.
Mr. Mica. But we still don't have implementation. What is--
--
Mr. Rosenker. There are some regulatory concerns, and there
has----
Mr. Mica. There is an also a privacy concern I know, too,
as far as pilot certification issues.
But I think, again, when we are putting someone behind the
yoke or in control of an aircraft, the airlines should be able
to access--the representative from New York, Ms. Slaughter,
went beyond what I had recommended, that this should be on line
or public information. But at least the person hiring should
have access to information about performance and their ability
to pass certification tests.
Mr. Rosenker. We agree with you, Mr. Mica; and, as I say,
we put this forth in 2005. An excellent first step is what the
Congress did in 1996 when it enacted the Pilot Records
Improvement Act (PRIA). The continuation where we find we can
get additional information which is being stored at the FAA,
that information is extremely valuable. This deals with pass/
fail, the kinds of certifications that the candidate has. This
would be an extremely valuable source of information when an
airline is attempting to evaluate and decide which one of the
candidates they should hire. Should they take one who has had
five failures, or should they take one who seems to be
extremely proficient in going through their instruction
programs? So we have made that recommendation.
In reality, an airline can get the material by having the
pilot sign a waiver, but it should be a requirement. It should
be made significantly easier to obtain this information.
Mr. Mica. But it hasn't been implemented.
Mr. Babbitt.
Mr. Babbitt. If I may, a little background. I am familiar
with the Pilot Records Act, and that Act was born from the lack
of information that one carrier hired a pilot not knowing that
he had multiple failures in training at another carrier. So the
focus was on the entry pilot's activities. And they said, you
know what? We should know what he did at the last carrier.
I think what this accident has shone some fairly bright
light on is excluded in that, as it was in the subject of the
discussion at the time, was the fact that the FAA maintains
another database. We maintain all the records of every rating,
all the writtens and so forth. Those, too, are maintained.
But the Pilot Records Act, my suggestion would be that we
probably need to modify that rule statutorily so that you get
both. There are privacy concerns that come into that issue, and
I think we do need to look at that. The FAA, of course, has the
oversight authority. Once you make that regulation change, then
it is the obligation of the FAA to ensure that those
regulations are being complied with. But the oversight is that
we didn't ask for enough when we wrote the rule.
Mr. Costello. The Chair thanks the Ranking Member and now
recognizes the gentleman from Ohio, Mr. Boccieri.
Mr. Boccieri. Thank you, Mr. Costello; and thank you to the
panel coming here today.
It is becoming clear that the 50 deaths that occurred that
night in February were not only tragic but completely
avoidable. And I want to focus on three things, Mr. Chairman. I
request that the letter that I submitted to Colgan Air and
their response and my remarks be submitted to the record.
[The information follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Boccieri. Three things I want to focus on. With 15
years of training with the United States Air Force and
thousands of hours as a C-130 pilot, I am baffled by the
response and I am baffled by the lack of attentiveness to the
recommendations that have been made from the NTSB to the FAA.
Number one, when I buy a ticket from an airline--I buy a
ticket from Continental, Delta, whomever--I am buying a ticket
with them because I like their training records, their
statistics, and I like and respect the fact that they have a
certain level of expectations with respect to their pilots. Yet
the co-chair agreements that we have right now in practice are
for purely marketing reasons, and the FAA even acknowledges in
its own admission that it has nothing to do with safety. In
fact, they said the co-chair agreements reported that safety
was not treated as a major factor in the Department's co-chair
approval process and the FAA did not take an active role in
approval or oversight of these agreements.
That is a shame, and it is tragic.
Number two, the regional airlines do not have the same
standards as the major airlines. The FAA likes to talk about we
train like we fly and we fly like we train. But yet when I dug
down and found the root of why this aircraft commander, this
captain did not apply the appropriate procedures to recover
from this stall--it was a full stall, an approach to a stall
and a full stall--he did not apply the appropriate procedures.
And when I wrote to Colgan Air, they suggested that every
pilot receives complete ground training on the Q-400 stall
system which includes a stick shaker, a stick pusher. The
training includes the recognition and recovery from near stall,
an indication of a stall, the stick shaker for the push-off.
Yet the NTSB said when they interviewed check pilots,
interviewed the demonstration or instruction of the aircraft
pusher system, it is not part of the training syllabus for
initial or recurrent training by Colgan. These pilots did not
know how to recover from a full stall. Completely, completely
avoidable.
And, in fact, the NTSB said that, in their training
requirements, that the FAA should have upset recovery training
aides; and the NTSB advised that training and stall recovery
should go beyond the approach to a stall to include training
recovery from a full stall condition in addition to the cases
where the flight data are available, weather flight test
incidents, that these data should be used to model stall
behavior and facilitate training beyond the initial stall
warning. Yet, since 1974, the FAA has not enacted stall
recovery, stall training, and stall recovery requirements for a
series of accidents that happened back in the 1970s.
Unacceptable. As a military pilot, we would not be able to
fly. We would not be able to fly if we were not allowed to
recover--or not able to recover from a full stall, approach to
a stall and an unusual attitude recovery.
And, in fact, the major airlines--I went to reserve duty
this weekend, and I asked a couple of my buddies who fly for
the major airlines, and they suggested, oh, we go into all
kinds of unusual attitudes, unusual recoveries, full stall
recognitions, and they have to recognize the performance and
structural integrity of their aircraft when they recover from
those procedures.
Yet these have not been enacted.
The third item, why are we permitting our pilots in
commercial aviation to fly into severe icing? As an airlift
pilot of the United States Air Force, the United States Air
Force does not allow me to fly into severe icing. Yet this crew
flew into what is arguably considered severe icing, freezing
drizzle, freezing rain.
Yet the training manual says that do not--for Colgan Air--
suggests--and this is from the NTSB safety report--do not
attempt to take off or make an approach to land in freezing
rain, sleet or drizzle, wet snow conditions that are beyond the
performance limits of the aircraft.
So it is clear that as long as performance indicators of
what they do when they crunch their numbers in their charts,
before they land based on their weight and atmospheric
conditions, they may make a mistake or they may not, but yet
they are permitted to fly into freezing rain and severe icing.
That is unacceptable.
I think that this panel not only has an obligation but a
duty to force the FAA to adhere to every one of the
recommendations that they make.
In particular, for the record, I want to cite Alpha-96-120,
the advisory of the NTSB that talks about unusual attitudes and
recoveries, with respect to this still being an open and
unacceptable response by the FAA as it pertains to Part 121. I
hope we get down to the brass knuckles with respect to changing
this. Because we have families that are sitting over there
right now, right now grieving the loss of their loved one
because we had inadequate training.
Now, knowing that Colgan Air pilots were not able or
trained to recover from a complete stall in an unusual
attitude, I ask you, Mr. Rosenker, would you fly on one of
these regional airlines if you knew the pilot was not able to
recover from a full stall or not trained to recover from a full
stall?
Mr. Rosenker. In fairness, Congressman, if I knew that, I
wouldn't.
Mr. Boccieri. To Mr. Babbitt, would you fly on a regional
airline if you knew that the pilots were not adequately trained
to recover from a fall stall?
Mr. Babbitt. I not only wouldn't fly, I would ground it.
Mr. Boccieri. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think this has
brought to light some very serious issues that we need to bring
to the attention of not only this Committee but the entire
public that flies on these regional airlines. Thank you.
Mr. Costello. I thank the gentleman for his thoughtful
comments and questions and look forward to working with you as
well as we go forward with legislation to address some of these
issues.
Mr. Oberstar. Mr. Chairman, may I just observe what a
storehouse of knowledge we just heard from the gentleman from
Ohio and his experience in military aircraft and icing. It was
a textbook case. Thank you for your contribution. It is
invaluable.
Mr. Costello. The Chair now recognizes the gentlelady from
West Virginia, Mrs. Capito.
Mrs. Capito. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member
Petri, for holding this very important hearing.
I would like to ask--I will be submitting my opening
statement for the record, but I do want to thank, as we have--
several of us have met several of the families who are affected
by this deep tragedy; and I want to thank them for their
courage, for their knowledge and for them helping to enlighten
a lot of us in I think bringing forth many issues today.
My question is kind of bouncing a little bit off of what my
colleague from Ohio was talking about. Originally, when the
original accident--this accident occurred, it was referred to
as the Continental connection flight. Very quickly, it became
Colgan Air. And in the NTSB report I think it is referred to
almost unanimously or always as Colgan Air but maybe began as
Continental. And my guess is--and many of us have said this--
that the passengers who buy the tickets think they are buying
Continental.
I fly US Air and fly Colgan Air every week. I think--what
is the responsibility or the relationship between the major
carrier/contract carrier when it comes to safety? Is it totally
separate? Because I am kind of hearing conflicting opinions
here.
You are saying it is the same safety standard, but then Mr.
Rosenker wanted to reinforce that we must keep these on the
same level, which tells me there is a belief that they are not.
Could you talk about that relationship a little bit?
Sure. Whoever wants to take it.
Mr. Babbitt. Both the carriers in this case were operating
under Part 121 of the Federal regulations. However, there may
have been--and we are certainly going to await--both some
findings from the NTSB and the Inspector General who has been
directed to look into aircraft training, airline training. So
we are going to look to both of those.
We are also not going to just simply wait. We are bringing
in these folks that represent major carriers, regional
carriers, and the pilots and unions involved in these to better
understand what are the gaps. Are there gaps, in fact, between
what is going on at these various carriers? That is what we
want to look into.
The standards are there. They are embodied in Part 121. And
the regulations that guide both of these carriers are clear.
But what we have seen and I have been referring to here, we are
finding that some people have raised the bar considerably; and
if that is the case, then we want to ask if we now have an
expectation that why isn't everyone raising that bar?
Mrs. Capito. Just in terms of the resources that are
available for safety training, whether it is a regional,
whether it is a major, I am assuming the major has more
resources available for training. Is that a reasonable
assumption?
Mr. Babbitt. Well, I think what you see at major carriers,
the tenure and longevity of the people that have the safety
training departments, their experience over the years has
allowed them to build on a base that is more robust. If a
carrier is newer, comes into being later, they get certified,
they operate legally, but they don't have the experience. There
are no 25-year pilots at some of these carriers.
And what we are looking to do when we bring everybody
together is, is there a way to "cross pollinate"? For lack of a
better term? Can't we take that experience and lessons learned
in other cases and let them use it, give them the benefit of
that knowledge and expose them to it? That is our goal now.
Then we will have, optimally, 6 months to a year of
experience of seeing this; and, at that time, we fully expect
to get some additional recommendations from the NTSB. We will
already have some operating experience with trying to do just
those things. I indicated in earlier comments that we know full
well that some of these carriers demand that the regional
partners have some of these safety attributes that they have
themselves.
Mrs. Capito. I think people flying assume that is what is
actually occurring, and I think that is one of the astounding
things that we have discovered here today.
I didn't mean to interrupt you. I want to ask one other
question, because my time is getting short.
When you have a mechanical failure on a plane or a
mechanical issue with a plane, it is mandatory that it is
upgraded, recalled, stopped, thank goodness. But it is my
understanding that if there are some pilots that need
additional training or they have had issues with falling
short--we have already heard they failed some of the tests--
that there is no mandatory requirement that they go back to
remedial training. It is just suggested.
If that is the case, we have got to change that. I think
that is no less important, whether the plane can fly or whether
the pilot can fly under optimal conditions. I don't know if you
have a response to that.
Mr. Rosenker, I cut you off on the first question.
Mr. Rosenker. I will let the Administrator answer that
question, and then I will follow up with the original question.
Mr. Babbitt. There are a number of elements involved in
training. A pilot may take--and remember that these are
probably the most tested people in the world-- they take two
physicals a year and three rides. One of them is a proficiency
check, one of them is a check ride, and then they get a random
line check. Three times a year, their performance is observed.
In the proficiency training, if there is a pilot, and his
training pilot said, look, you can do this particular element
better, let us have a little more training for you tomorrow,
that pilot can't fly. That pilot is now grounded.
Mrs. Capito. Is that mandatory grounding?
Mr. Babbitt. Yes. The pilot has not passed his check ride,
so he is grounded.
Mrs. Capito. So the pilot that we have been talking about,
if he didn't pass his check ride, he was unable to fly again
until he passed the test?
Mr. Babbitt. That is correct. So we would go back and
revisit that element, give him additional training to make them
proficient. When that proficiency is demonstrated, then he
passes the check riding and he is okay. It is just like fixing
the part.
I remind people that this is a complex profession. I also
remind people that Tiger Woods takes golf lessons every week.
Pilots get training all the time. We learn things all the
time. We have better techniques to teach them. We have better
equipment to teach them in. The fidelity of a simulator today
is vastly improved, and I have seen it grow over time.
As we learn these things, we apply them. Sometimes there is
a gap. Sometimes it takes our good friends at the NTSB to point
that gap out. And we say, wait a minute: we should change the
regulation and take it up to the next level of safety.
Mr. Rosenker. If I could follow up to the Congresswoman's
question about the relationship between the major and the
regional carriers. It defies logic, at least the way I look at
it, that when you put a brand, when you put a logo, when you
paint the aircraft with your colors, that all you would be
interested in is the financial aspects of when the ticket money
is being deposited in the bank. I believe we are going to be
uncovering a good deal of information concerning relationships
like this through our investigation.
What is important to note is that the minimum standards are
there. Are the minimum standards adequate? Should we be raising
those standards? And can we look at the best practices? These
are some of the aspects I believe the Administrator and the
Secretary are going to consider next week.
Again, it is going to take time for us the NTSB to finish
this investigation. We look forward to being completed in about
the first quarter. But we believe there will be a good number
of recommendations coming from it that, and if implemented by
our colleagues at the FAA, they will do a great deal to prevent
this kind of accident from happening again.
Mr. Costello. The Chair thanks the gentlelady and now
recognizes the gentleman from Illinois, Mr. Lipinski.
Mr. Lipinski. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you,
Ranking Member Petri, for holding today's hearing and your
continued leadership in working to ensure safety and the
integrity of our Nation's air transportation system.
Administrator Babbitt, I want to welcome you and
congratulate you. I am looking forward to working with you
here.
While so far we have rightfully focused on pilot workforce
issues, another possible issue in the Colgan Air tragedy may
have been the weather. I would like to focus on a broader issue
involving weather and air traffic. Specifically, I want to
discuss a plan submitted by the National Weather Service to the
FAA in December. This plan proposes closing the center weather
service units located within a 20 air route traffic control
centers in the continental U.S.
As you know, this plan was developed by the National
Weather Service in response to the Bush administration's
request to cut costs at FAA; and it calls for the National
Weather Service to send the 20 FAA facilities forecast from two
central units located in Maryland and in Kansas City. So I know
I am not alone in worrying that, if this plan is implemented,
air traffic controllers at the air route traffic control
centers will no longer have the immediate expertise of on-site
meteorologists to advise them on where route aircraft
experience difficulties when weather conditions play a critical
role in that decision. As we have talked about that certainly--
we don't know if that had an impact here, but weather certainly
was an issue in this crash. So I think clearly we need to
carefully evaluate this proposal.
Now, you probably haven't had time to consider the proposal
in detail. You haven't been in this job for very long yet, but
I know back in 1996 when you were head of the Airline Pilots
Association, you strongly opposed eliminating or weakening the
center weather service units.
I understand 13 years is a long time and things do change,
but I would like to know what your thoughts are now that you
can share on how this proposal will impact redundant safety
systems and how do you plan to assess performance of the new
centers? Because I have great concerns--a question about how
the proposed centralized forecasters can have intimate
knowledge of local microclimates and air traffic patterns.
But since we are running short on time here, I know, let me
also throw this in there and get your response. I think
probably the most important question here is, if you have any
doubts about the performance of the proposed system, would you
be willing to put on hold this development until those concerns
can be addressed? Because I know that the leadership at the
Department of Transportation has taken a closer look at the
Bush administration plans to consolidate FAA engineering
activities and was wondering if that was also a possibility if
you did have concerns about this.
Mr. Babbitt. Sure. I appreciate your recognition of my
short tenure. I have, in fact, had a little bit of an
understanding on this. Just a couple of quick observations.
The local knowledge issue, these meteorologists providing
information at the centers are no matter where they are, they
are looking at the weather all over the United States. Flights
are going everywhere. They don't just stay in that area, number
one.
Number two, one of the restraints that we have today is
most of these are manned for 16 hours a day. That leaves us
with a third of the day with no meteorologist, and what they do
today is call into other areas.
So while I completely respect the point you are making, and
I certainly will look into it, my understanding is the idea
that centralizing into a couple of locations for the purpose of
having redundancy if we had a communication failure or
something like that, you would always have the other center,
but you would also get a much more robust, 24-hour-a-day
availability for meteorology advice and forecasting and so
forth.
Mr. Babbitt. I would also note most of the major carriers
today-- while in the era a long time ago when I was hired, we
did have meteorologists at every pilot domicile, and you met
physically with the dispatcher, you met physically with the
meteorologist before your flight--there was some resistance to
it, but at the end of the day they did--and I think today every
major carrier has centralized meteorology. It is more
efficient, it gives you redundancy, it gives you a broader
depth.
So that said, I will certainly look into if you have got
additional information. I think the Department of Commerce
actually has that as opposed to the DOT. But it is, again, my
understanding that the FAA buys those services from the
Department of Commerce. So we will certainly look into it and
be respectful. If there is a better way, I am all for it.
Mr. Lipinski. I appreciate that you keep a close eye on
this and make sure that we are doing the right thing and are
ensuring safety. Thank you.
Mr. Costello. The Chair thanks the gentleman from Illinois.
Let me inform everyone that we have two votes pending on
the floor. We have about 5 more minutes left before we have to
leave to vote. I will recognize the gentlelady from Ohio for
her questions, and then after her questions we will recess for
approximately 30 minutes for us to get the two votes out of the
way, and we will reconvene the hearing at that point.
The gentlelady from Ohio Mrs. Schmidt is recognized.
Mrs. Schmidt. Thank you, and thank you, Mr. Chairman,
because if I appear passionate with this issue, it is because
in addition to losing Johnathan Perry from Loveland, Ohio, a
community I grew up in and still live in, the Wolinksys, who
live on Long Street in New York, spent almost a decade in
Loveland, went to the same church that I grew up in. And so
this is really a very personal issue for me.
And, Mr. Babbitt, I want to ask you a question and then the
panel one, and I will try to be brief. Chairman--or Ranking
Member Mica talked a little bit about the issue of privacy and
also the issue of pilot training and access to that
information. And it is my understanding that if a pilot fails a
number of safety tests with one airline and then switches to
another airline, the new employer does not necessarily know
that the pilot has failed those tests, and there is no uniform
database that allows airlines to review the past performance of
pilots on all safety tests.
I am wondering how do we make this safer? Would it be
acceptable and useful and not violate the 1974 right of privacy
policy that you alluded to on page 7 of your testimony--would
it be acceptable if we create a safe and secure private
database, not open to the public, but open to the airline
industry, so that when a pilot crosses to another industry,
that they can access that data and see what tests they have
passed and what tests they have failed, and not just put an
arbitrary date of 5 years on them, but their lifetime scoring
so that the airlines can adequately review their performance
tests?
Mr. Babbitt. I think your point is a good one. They do--in
fact, when a pilot applies at another carrier, they can get his
training records from the carrier.
Mrs. Schmidt. Is it mandatory, or is it always accessible?
Mr. Babbitt. They have to. But that is only their training
records from the previous carrier. That is my understanding.
Now, the bright light that is being put on here is there is
no requirement. There is a suggestion and an advisory circular
from the FAA that you should ask the pilot. And I have asked,
based on what I have just learned in the last week from the
NTSB investigation--I have asked counsel at the FAA would it be
discriminatory? One of my concerns was you are trying to hire
me as a pilot, and you ask me, may I access your database
records at the FAA, and I say no. Is that discriminatory for
you not to hire me? It would certainly raise my eyebrows if I
were you and I refused to give you access to my records. I
would want to know why.
And so I agree that we perhaps need to find a vehicle, A,
is it legal, and, B, do we have to change a statutory
requirement to get to those, provided the adequate protections
for personal information.
Mrs. Schmidt. Thank you.
And this is to anyone on the panel that can answer this.
There has been some talk about the salaries, and some of these
salaries are at 20-, $23,000. Who sets the salaries for these
pilots? Is it negotiated by a union? Is it the airline
industry? How does this pay grade occur? Do you have that level
of expertise, or do we wait for the next panel?
Mr. Babbitt. I have a little background in that area.
Mrs. Schmidt. That is why I kind of looked at you.
Mr. Babbitt. I sensed that.
The first year of employment is typically set by the
carrier. It is not negotiable. The employee is a pilot. He or
she is at will. They have no protection. They typically are not
even eligible to belong to a union or be represented. After
that, usually 1 year, 18 months into their employment,
somewhere in that range, then they became covered by a
collectively bargained agreement.
Mrs. Schmidt. Thank you.
Mr. Costello. The Chair thanks the gentlelady and announces
that we will recess until approximately 12:30.
And let me thank the members of this panel for being here
this morning to offer their thoughtful testimony. I have other
questions that I will submit to you in writing and ask that you
respond.
Mr. Costello. We look forward to working with you on this
critical issue as we move forward with legislation. So we thank
you for testifying.
This panel is dismissed. We would ask that the second panel
be at the witness table at approximately 12:30. Thank you.
[Recess.]
Mr. Costello. The Subcommittee will come to order.
The Chair would introduce now the second panel of
witnesses. First, Mr. John Michael Loftus. Mr. Loftus is
testifying today on behalf of the families of Continental
Flight 3407. He is a former pilot with Continental Airlines,
and, of course, his daughter Madeline, as I mentioned earlier,
was on Flight 3407.
Mr. Loftus, again, we offer our condolences to you and to
the other family members who are here. We appreciate the fact
that you are willing to testify and to give your perspective
before our Subcommittee.
Next, Mr. John Prater, Captain John Prater, who is the
president of Air Line Pilots Association, International; Mr.
Roger Cohen, president of the Regional Airline Association; Mr.
Daniel Morgan, vice president of safety and regulatory
compliance with Colgan Air; Mr. James May, president and CEO of
the Air Transport Association; Dr. R. Curtis Graeber, fellow
with the Flight Safety Foundation; and Dr. Frank Ayers,
chairman of the flight training department, professor of
aeronautical science at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.
Gentlemen, thank you all for being here today to testify
before the Subcommittee. Let me say that your entire written
statements, your testimony, will be submitted in the record.
And we would ask you to summarize your testimony so that we
have an opportunity to ask questions.
At this time the Chair now recognizes Mr. Loftus.
TESTIMONY OF JOHN MICHAEL LOFTUS, FAMILIES OF CONTINENTAL
FLIGHT 3407, FATHER OF MADELINE LOFTUS/VICTIM OF FLIGHT 3407
CRASH, FORMER PILOT WITH CONTINENTAL AIRLINES; CAPTAIN JOHN
PRATER, PRESIDENT, AIR LINE PILOTS ASSOCIATION, INTERNATIONAL;
ROGER COHEN, PRESIDENT, REGIONAL AIRLINE ASSOCIATION; DANIEL
MORGAN, VICE PRESIDENT, SAFETY AND REGULATORY COMPLIANCE,
COLGAN AIR, INC.; JAMES C. MAY, PRESIDENT AND CEO, AIR
TRANSPORT ASSOCIATION; R. CURTIS GRAEBER, Ph.D., FELLOW, THE
FLIGHT SAFETY FOUNDATION; AND FRANK AYERS, CHAIRMAN, FLIGHT
TRAINING DEPARTMENT, PROFESSOR OF AERONAUTICAL SCIENCE, EMBRY-
RIDDLE AERONAUTICAL UNIVERSITY
Mr. Loftus. Mr. Chairman, Subcommittee Members, thank you
for the opportunity to speak before your Subcommittee today. My
name is John Michael Loftus. I am here today on behalf of
Families of Continental Flight 3407 both as a father and as a
former pilot with Continental and Continental Express for over
20 years.
My daughter Maddy was on board Flight 3407 February 12,
2009. Madeline was a beautiful 24-year-old woman just starting
down the pathway of her adult life. She had just finished her
education and had returned to New Jersey, to home, where she
had landed an excellent job in an outstanding pharmaceutical
advertising agency. She was surrounded by family and friends
who loved her.
As she boarded Flight 3407, she was so excited about going
back to Buffalo State College to an alumni hockey game, so
excited to see her old teammates and friends and to pursue one
of the loves of her life, hockey. In other words, she was
poised to begin the rest of her life. But that night on board
Flight 3407, all her hopes and dreams and plans for the future
career, love, marriage, motherhood, were brutally extinguished,
and we are left here sitting today asking why.
I don't think we can ever make sense of the tragic loss of
Maddy and the other 49 people on board that flight that night,
but we can and we must do everything in our power to ensure
that it never happens again.
I speak to you not only as a grieving parent, but I also
bring my aviation background, having been a commercial pilot
for 26 years and 22 years of flying experience with Continental
and Continental Express. If.
I could leave you Members with two things, two thoughts
today, they would be there is no substitute for experience in
the air, and the importance of pilot training, especially in
emergency circumstances, cannot be overstated.
My experience in the cockpit involved many difficult flying
conditions. I flew into thunderstorms, low ceiling, dense fog
and many winter seasons involving icing conditions. The key to
my success was being able to gain the knowledge by flying with
other, more experienced pilots who had dealt with these same
difficult flying conditions longer than I.
. When I flew for Continental Express as a regional pilot,
I had the benefit of having the access to the same training and
pilot resources that the pilots at Continental, our major
carrier, had. However, as a third tier of regional airlines
sprung up, I saw the industry devolving into two levels of
safety, one for the majors and a second for the regionals.
Small regional carriers like Colgan Air have less resources for
training. Pilots could not benefit from the existing training
department, the extensive training department, with decades of
institutional knowledge.
These are just a few of the insights that I have gathered
during my years as a commercial pilot that relate to some of
the safety issues that have been exposed by the tragedy of
Flight 3407. More important than just identifying the problems,
however, our family members implore you to push for solutions.
First, we need to take an industrywide look at the
experience requirements in terms of hiring, upgrading and the
pairing of pilots together in the cockpit. In the case of
Flight 3407, the fact that the pilot had failed check rides in
2006 and 2007 while at Colgan, yet still was upgraded to
captain in 2008, and was paired with a young first officer who
was uncomfortable with her icing training, reflect the
improvement that needs to be made in this area.
Second, we need to revamp the approach to training; more
importantly the difference of not just what is trained, but how
it is trained. That is where the wide gap exists between the
majors and the regionals. Regional pilots typically have less
experience, fly more legs in a day, and often face more
difficult low-altitude weather conditions, and yet they are not
receiving the high level of training their counterparts receive
at the major carriers.
So what we need is for the major carriers to play a more
hands-on role in the design, execution and oversight of the
training programs utilized by the regional partners. When our
loved ones bought tickets under the Continental name, that is
what they were entitled to.
Finally, we need to require, not just recommend, that all
regional carriers implement best practice safety initiatives
that are commonplace among today's major carriers: FOQA, LOSA
and ASAP. There is no reason for the state-of-the-art safety
tools not to be made available to the regional pilots.
Unfortunately, as a veteran of the industry, I have often
heard it said that most aviation regulations and procedures are
written in blood. My Maddy and 49 other people who died that
tragic night in February have given their blood, and now we
believe they are owed solutions. We are asking you to invest
time, effort and resources to make the necessary changes in the
airline industry. You are the only ones who can bring together
all the stakeholders, the regionals, the majors, the unions,
the manufacturers, the FAA, and the interests of the flying
public. You alone can marshal the forces of the government to
ensure we receive one level of safety that all Americans
deserve.
Although some of the voices in the industry may complain
about the economic costs to safety improvements, we are here to
tell you that no price tag can match the price that we have
paid with the loss of our loved ones. It is our responsibility
to ensure that no other Americans will have to pay this price
in the future. When you are faced with the tough decisions,
please think of your son, daughter or loved one flying on a
turboprop airplane, the last flight of the night in the dead of
winter in Minnesota, Illinois, Wisconsin, Upstate New York, and
please ask yourself how much is their life worth?
I miss my daughter every day. Her mother, brother and
sister miss her terribly, too. My wish is not to have to see
another father, mother, husband, wife or child sitting before
this Committee and asking the same questions. Let us join
together and commit to solve these problems and these issues
now. Thank you.
Mr. Costello. Mr. Loftus, thank you.
Captain Prater.
Mr. Prater. Thank you, Chairman Costello. Good afternoon to
the Committee.
As Captain Loftus and I go back over 20 years, as
Congresswoman Schmidt recognized, accidents are personal, and
they are personal to those of us who fly the airplanes. I, too,
knew Maddy as she tried to teach me how to ice skate.
We commend this Committee for calling this hearing and
looking at the importance of these vital issues. And we look
forward to participating with the FAA in their call to action
summit next week to address the issues in much more depth.
While this summit is a good start, these issues are complex,
and long-term solutions need to be identified. And we encourage
the continued attention and participation of this Committee.
In recent years the major airlines have come to rely
heavily on code share arrangements with so-called regional
airlines to connect large, midsized and small cities in the
U.S., Canada and Mexico to their international hubs. This has
resulted in the exponential growth in the regional sector of
the industry.
Still, the major carriers exert a great deal, total
economic pressure on the regional airlines to provide their
service at the lowest possible price. They control ticket
pricing and schedules and regularly move flying between their
regional partners. Some major airlines have even begun
outsourcing their flying to regionals and laying off their own
pilots, losing decades of experience in the process. These
experienced pilots cannot afford to work for one of these so-
called regional carriers as a newly hired first officer. As a
result, many of the smaller regional carriers hire pilots at
the FAA minimum standards and do not employ adequate screening
processes during hiring that identify that ideal candidate.
As was brought out during the NTSB's recent hearing on the
tragic accident in Buffalo, many pilots who fly for regional
airlines are not getting adequate training or enough rest.
Airlines are requiring pilots to work longer days, and more of
them, each month. Fleet and base changes are forcing pilots to
decide between commuting or possibly taking a huge pay cut to
train on new equipment.
The consequence is the quality of airline pilot careers has
been greatly diminished, and the severe erosion of benefits and
quality of life are motivating the experienced pilots to move
to other professions.
Current training practices do not take into account the
drastic change in pilot applicants' experience. Instead, they
assume that pilots are far more experienced than they may
actually be. ALPA believes there must be a new focus on
standardization, and even on some fundamental flying skills. To
meet this challenge airlines and other training providers must
develop methodologies to train for that lack of experience and
to train for judgment.
Current training practices may also need to be adjusted to
account for the source and experience level of that new pilot
entering into initial training at his or her airline. ALPA also
believes there should be more stringent academic requirements
to obtain both commercial and airline transport pilot ratings
in preparation to start a career as an airline pilot. The FAA
should develop and implement a structured and rigorous ground
school and testing procedures for pilots who want to qualify to
fly for Part 121 airlines. ALPA also recommends that airlines
provide specific command and leadership training courses for
new captains to instill in them the necessary skills and traits
to become a real leader on the flight deck.
Airlines should also implement mentoring programs for both
captains and first officers as they first enter operations in
their new crew positions to help them apply the knowledge and
skills to line operations, and to supplement their own limited
experience by learning from their experienced peers.
Flight experience and pilot capabilities cannot be measured
by mere flight hours. Screening processes should be established
prior to initial pilot hiring to ensure that new-hire airline
pilots are indeed the best and brightest as far as abilities,
airmanship, professionalism and performance.
Turning to another area of concern, this Committee has
listened to me and my predecessors since 1990 on pilot fatigue.
I won't mention anything longer except to say we have talked
long enough. It is time to implement science-based regulatory
changes.
Other means to enhance safety and improve airline
operations are the data collection and the analysis programs
such as FOQA and ASAP share that information across the
industry and then modify and take indeed the best practices and
implement them.
In order to allow these programs to grow and make the
reports more readily obtainable, we will need additional
legislative protections to be put into place that will limit
the use of ASAP and FOQA data in civil liability cases.
Restrictions need to be strengthened to ensure the data is used
for safety purposes only.
I will close with many major carriers have implemented
these type of programs. We want them to spread and be
protected. The best safety device on any airplane is a well-
trained, well-rested, highly motivated pilot. A strong safety
culture must be instilled and consistently reinforced from the
highest levels within an airline and among its code share
partners. This type of organizational safety culture will
encourage the highest levels of performance among professional
pilots, improve airline operations, and, most importantly,
advance aviation safety so we are not back here again in the
future. Thank you.
Mr. Costello. Thank you, Captain Prater.
The Chair now recognizes Mr. Cohen.
Mr. Cohen. Chairman Costello, Ranking Member Petri, and
Members of the Subcommittee, I am Roger Cohen, and I am
president of the Regional Airline Association. And I want to
express our deepest sympathies for the lives of the passengers
and the crew of Flight 3407 that were lost and for their
families affected by the crash, and that we share in their
grief.
I also want to express, not only for our member airlines,
but for the 60,000 highly trained professionals in our
industry, our total and unwavering commitment to safety and to
work towards ensuring that this postaccident process does not
have to be repeated ever; to take whatever steps are necessary
to make certain that our flight crews and our airplanes are as
safe as humanly possible.
The safety of the Nation's skies is a shared
responsibility, and our challenge for the Federal aviation
safety agencies, for the airlines, for our employees is to
review all of the issues with but one single objective, and
that is to prevent any future accidents. And as we do that, it
is important to keep our perspective to reassure the American
public that flying is extremely safe. In fact, until this
recent tragedy, commercial airlines had gone the longest period
in aviation history without a fatal accident.
Working collectively, airlines have steadily improved our
safety record over the course of many decades of safety
initiatives, investigations and reviews of accidents and
incidents, large and small. Nevertheless, we can do better. And
our industry's overarching goal has been and always will be
zero accidents and zero fatalities.
Mr. Chairman, today we want to better define today's
regional airlines to clear up any misconceptions, but more
importantly, we would like to talk about the steps regional
airlines have already taken and the actions we plan to take to
further intensify this commitment to safety and accident
prevention. As has been described, our airplanes typically
carry up to 100 passengers. More than 50 percent of the
scheduled flights in the United States are on regional
airlines, and most notably, three out of every four communities
in this country with scheduled service are served exclusively
by regional airlines.
Our airlines largely operate in seamless partnership with
the major airlines. Regional airlines provide the crew and the
aircraft, while major airlines set the flight schedules, the
fares and the customer service standards. Regional airlines and
their major airline partners operate as a single integrated
system, one ticket, one trip, one safety standard.
All passenger airlines are subject to the exact same FAA
safety standards and requirements. It has been this way for
more than a decade. But our goal is to prevent accidents, and
that is why the Regional Airline Association has embarked upon
our strategic safety initiative to underscore our safety
culture and to help prevent accidents, and this strategic
safety initiative has four elements.
First, we are bringing together our own safety
professionals to review all of the procedures and address any
issue that could even be perceived, perceived, as a
contributing factor to an accident. Second, we are going to
conduct a thorough review of fatigue, looking at all the human
factors that have been described today in the scientific field
to minimize risks associated with fatigue. Third, REA will
implement a fatigue awareness management program so that our
airlines keep this issue at the top of the mind for both their
flight crews and, just as importantly, airline management.
The last element is reaching out in partnership with you in
Congress, across the government, and to our fellow stakeholders
in labor and throughout the aviation industry to explore the
full range of issues that could help us improve safety and
prevent future accidents. And among those are, it has been
noted, establishing a single integrated FAA database of pilot
records, exploring random fatigue testing, full examination of
commuting, extending the period for background checks from 5 to
10 years, analyzing the information from cockpit voice
recorders in settings other than accident investigations, and
mining this great field of check ride data for trends.
We have already begun implementing this initiative, and we
look forward to working with this Subcommittee and keep you
informed throughout the process.
Mr. Chairman, thank you, and I will be glad to answer any
questions you might have.
Mr. Costello. The Chair thanks you, Mr. Cohen, and now
recognizes Mr. Morgan.
Mr. Morgan. Mr. Chairman, thank you.
Mr. Chairman and Committee Members, I would first like to
take this opportunity to express the condolences from all of us
at Colgan Air to the families of those who were lost in the
tragedy of Flight 3407. We know your grief, and I assure you
that we all have a common goal to prevent such catastrophes
from ever happening again. The nature of flying airplanes
entails risk, and it is the job of all professionals in the
airline industry to reduce that risk to an absolute minimum. As
such, this process today is vital to that mission.
Mr. Chairman, every aviation accident teaches us something
more about how to prevent another tragedy. We all learn from
our experiences, and as a result, we constantly improve our
industry. Those of us who have long been part of this industry,
whether from the airlines, FAA, NTSB or other regulatory
entities, and particularly those of us from the safety
departments of the business, are always saddened by the loss of
any airplane from any airline anywhere in the world. But we
also know that we what learn from each event will make us
stronger, and indeed it has.
In my 30 years as an airline professional, I have seen the
U.S. airline industry endure some remarkable challenges in a
constantly changing environment. Our business is incredibly
complex. The aircraft, the air traffic systems, the intricacies
of regulations all make this a demanding industry. But the men
and women I have had the privilege to work with in my career
have continuously stepped up to the challenges, and because of
what we have learned, we have made the U.S. commercial airline
system the absolute best in the world.
I have no doubt that the next generation of airline
professionals will continue to face this inexorable challenge
of change. I believe it is my job, as well as the job of all of
us in this business, to use our experience and the knowledge we
have gained in our careers to hand that next generation a safer
product and, in so doing, leave a safer industry for the public
to enjoy. And that is why I am here with you today to defer the
legacy of air travel, safe air travel.
I appreciate the opportunity to come before this Committee
today and continue the process of furthering aviation safety. I
have also provided additional remarks and information in my
submitted testimony, and I am prepared to address your
questions and concerns.
Mr. Costello. The Chair thanks you and now recognizes Mr.
May.
Mr. May. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good morning, or
afternoon.
Let me begin by saying that the crash of the Colgan Air
aircraft near Buffalo was a tragedy that has produced
indescribable heartache for the relatives and friends of
victims of that accident. And I personally expressed my
condolences to Captain Loftus, and I do so for the rest of the
families.
In the airline industry, safety is our highest priority. We
work closely with all members of the aviation community to
achieve high levels of safety, including regional airlines. It
is in that spirit that I appear before you this morning. No
accident, as you have heard others say, is acceptable. We have
a responsibility to understand through rigorous and searching
inquiry the cause of the Buffalo accident and to take whatever
corrective measures are needed.
In light of that responsibility, we are very fortunate that
there are three expert government forums in which that scrutiny
is happening. This is as it should be. The public needs to be
confident in our responses to aviation safety issues. The
National Transportation Safety Board's ongoing investigation
will produce a far more complete picture than we have today of
what so tragically unfolded that evening. In this, as is in
previous accidents, the Board is the authoritative source for
making that determination and recommending corrective actions.
In addition, the Department of Transportation's inspector
general recently began an assessment of the FAA's oversight of
certification, pilot qualification, training and other issues.
When that review was announced, we, ATA, immediately offered
our resources and full cooperation to the inspector general. I
have met with Inspector General Scovel and his team, and we
will do so again. His evaluation and the constructive
suggestions that we know will result from it will augment the
NTSB's effort.
Finally, next Monday's FAA-sponsored call to action meeting
is an immediate, broad-based forum to look at safety issues,
including those raised at this morning's hearing. ATA was a
major participant in the runway safety call to action held by
the FAA 2 years ago that advanced runway safety through the
well-informed assessments and concrete recommendations of the
participants.
We look forward to being equally engaged with the FAA and
other interested stakeholders in the vital work that will begin
next Monday. And I think it is actually Tuesday. Although we
won't have the results of the NTSB's investigation and the
inspector general review for some time, we do expect similar
positive results.
I don't believe that any topic, any topic, should be off
the table at the call to action meeting. We need to have a full
and frank conversation about safety. So let me suggest seven
subjects that, for openers, should be considered. First,
mandatorily applying the FOQA, Flight Operational Quality
Assurance, programs used by major carriers to regional
airlines. FOQA works. The collection and analysis of data
recorded during flight improves safety.
Second, applying Aviation Safety Action Program, ASAP,
which encourages voluntary reporting of safety issues and
events that come to the attention of employees to those
regional airlines that do not have such a program already.
Third, identifying advanced training best practices of
major carriers for use by regional airlines like AQP for
training.
Fourth--this has been said by others today--we need to have
a centralized database of pilot records to help airlines
evaluate the backgrounds of applicants for flight deck
positions. We think that the FAA should determine if such a
system can be efficiently, effectively implemented.
Fifth, the issue of compliance with the sterile cockpit
rule has been raised. Let us see if FAA needs to increase
compliance oversight in this area.
Sixth, let us examine flight crew preparedness. In
particular we should look at what crew members have done before
they have reported to work that may affect their performance in
the cockpit.
And seventh, let us also examine crew member commuting and
whether it requires additional attention.
Mr. Chairman, we are committed to working with the
stakeholders to develop solutions to any safety issues,
including those that emerge from these three important
governmental initiatives. Thank you.
Mr. Costello. The Chair thanks you and now recognizes Dr.
Graeber.
Mr. Graeber. Chairman Costello, Ranking Member Petri and
distinguished Members of the Subcommittee, my name is Curtis
Graeber. I am a fellow of the Flight Safety Foundation and a
former NASA scientist.
The foundation is an international organization dedicated
to the continuous improvement of global aviation safety, and we
appreciate the opportunity to testify about recent scientific
progress related to flight crew fatigue.
Unfortunately, fatigue is ubiquitous and unavoidable in
aviation. To address it, regulators have traditionally imposed
limits governing how long and how often pilots can operate an
airplane. Different countries impose different limits usually
based on very little scientific knowledge. The FAA's flight-
time limitations are no different and have remained essentially
unchanged for 50 years.
Several attempts have failed to update the regulations;
however, such efforts would likely result in little improvement
because they are really attempts to tweak what already exists.
More effective tools are needed. Fortunately over the past
three decades, there has been an extensive scientific effort to
better understand the complex origins of fatigue, its impact on
performance and how to mitigate its risk.
In 1980, the Congress directed NASA to undertake a
multiyear effort to improve our understanding of crew fatigue
and jet lag. The results of this work, as well as other
nonaviation studies, can now provide the scientific basis for a
paradigm shift in how we manage fatigue risk. This shift is
known as fatigue risk management, a systematic approach to
addressing fatigue in a comprehensive, proactive manner that
does not rely solely on adherence to a set of prescribed hourly
limits. In its broadest form, fatigue risk management takes a
systematic, three-pronged approach incrementally to manage
fatigue risk: prevention, mitigation and intervention.
The first step, prevention, can be characterized as
strategic risk prevention. It includes such measures as
scientifically defensible scheduling and education about sleep
and fatigue. We believe that this step should also include
medical identification and treatment of sleep disorders.
However, the FAA's medical examination has no requirement to
identify them in pilots. It should.
The second step encompasses risk mitigation at the
operational level.
The final step, intervention, recognizes the inevitable
fact that crews sometimes experience significant fatigue
despite the best efforts to prevent it. It may include
interventions such as controlled rest on the flight deck.
A key part of the initial prevention step involves the
alternative use of a fatigue risk management system, or FRMS,
in place of prescribed flight-duty limits to determine what is
``scientifically defensible scheduling.'' It takes into account
known variables that affect sleep and alertness which
prescriptive flight-duty limits cannot address.
In contrast to prescriptive limits, an FRMS employs a
multilayered, data-driven defense to manage operational fatigue
risk proactively. Objective and subjective data related to crew
alertness, as well as FOQA data, are routinely collected and
analyzed to monitor where fatigue risk occurs and where safety
may be jeopardized. The system then allows for generating new
scheduling solutions or other strategies to mitigate measured
fatigue risk. At the same time, FRMS provides operators with
flexibility to seek the most efficient, safe crewing solutions
to meet operational needs.
In early 2006, ICAO established a subgroup to develop an
international regulatory framework for fatigue risk management.
Their starting point was the model developed by the Flight
Safety Foundation for ultra-long-range operations beyond 16
hours. ICAO's draft framework recommends incorporating FRMS
into an operator's proactive and accountable SMS. The Flight
Safety Foundation strongly encourages the industry to adopt a
proactive approach of prevention, mitigation and intervention
to systematically address fatigue risk management.
The United States aviation community can no longer treat
fatigue risk as just another rule that has to be met. We
congratulate the FAA for sponsoring a major international
symposium on aviation fatigue management last June. Several
non-U.S. airlines reported on their successful implementation
of FRMS that has resulted in enhanced safety, improved crew
satisfaction, greater operational flexibility, and lower costs,
including insurance premiums.
The foundation also believes that controlled rest on the
flight deck should be made legal for use when necessary for the
safety of flight. Its effectiveness was demonstrated
dramatically by NASA in 1989 and incorporated into a draft
advisory circular in 1993, yet it has never been implemented in
the United States. Numerous authorities around the world have
approved it. It has been successfully used by foreign carriers
since 1994, and, frankly, the oft-repeated excuse that it
doesn't pass the `Jay Leno' test isn't valid anymore.
Finally, the foundation urges the FAA to further develop
and implement fatigue risk management on a trial basis, as it
is already doing for ultra-long-range flights from the U.S. to
Mumbai and to Hong Kong. Together these actions will enable
U.S. Commercial aviation to enhance its level of safety with
regard to fatigue risk and do so efficiently and proactively.
The foundation believes the United States should be leading the
world in fatigue risk management instead of following it.
Mr. Chairman, thank you, and I am happy to answer any
questions.
Mr. Costello. Thank you, Dr. Graeber.
And the Chair now recognizes Dr. Ayers.
Mr. Ayers. Chairman Costello, Ranking Member Petri,
Chairman Oberstar, Committee Members, my name is Frank Ayers,
and I have the privilege of managing the training for all the
pilots at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona
Beach, Florida, who are moving on to the regional and the major
airlines. As you may be aware, Embry-Riddle was founded as a
flight training school in 1926; in fact, well before many of
the major airlines and the regional airlines. In the
intervening 83 years, while we have expanded to become a major
engineering, business and aviation university, our core
capability has always been in producing the best pilots
available in the industry.
As I listened to Captain Prater's comments about what a
training organization should be, I reflected back on what I see
every day at Embry-Riddle, and I think it might inform the
discussion of how training is done for young people who move
from off-the-street into regional airline cockpits.
First, the program at Embry-Riddle has high selection
standards. You have to compete to get into the program, and
then you compete against the high academic standards of a 4-
year university to remain in the program and to graduate.
Competition is good. It is the hallmark of military flight
training and other very successful flight training programs
around the world.
Additionally, our program is extensively peer reviewed.
There are about 30 major universities that band together under
an organization called the Aviation Accreditation Board
International, and we willingly submit ourselves to peer review
of our program. That increases the strength of our program, and
it spreads the good word in a collegial atmosphere to other
institutions so all the boats rise on the tide at the same
time.
Additionally, we think a program that teaches pilots to fly
in the regionals and in the majors should be stable
financially. In our area alone, we have had three flight
training providers go bankrupt or go out of business in the
last 6 months; two, in fact, in the last 3 months. Most was
significant loss of money to the individual and a loss of
training.
We think it is important that students that put down a
sizeable amount of money, maybe 60- or $70,000, there is an
expectation that they will graduate. Again, in the collegiate
aviation training environment, that expectation is that you
have an opportunity to compete against the standard to
graduate. And we think that is a much better way of doing
business than simply cash for training.
A successful aviation training program like ours has a
strong academic quotient. In the first 1-1/2 years of a 4-year
degree, our students complete all the academic work associated
with the FAA-required commercial pilot certificate, and that is
the certificate required to become a regional airline pilot.
However, the next 2-1/2 years in a bachelor of science degree
program heavy on math and physics, our students essentially get
the same education that a senior 747 captain has, while
certainly not their experience, but they get that same
education in jet engine systems, in weather, icing, autopilot
usage, all those various functions.
We think it is very important that they be fully prepared
to fly jet aircraft.
Additionally, the flight training and simulation program
that supports their training should be a modern one. We have
chosen at Embry-Riddle to follow Part 142 of the Code of
Federal Regulation. We are the only major university and one of
the few general aviation training programs that trains under
Part 142, which is essentially the way the airlines train.
After the downturn in our business after 9/11, in 2003, our
university made a huge investment in technology, almost $10
million in simulators and about $2 million in Automatic
Dependent Surveillance Broadcast equipment so that our students
would be on the cutting edge of aviation training. By being in
Part 142, we do about 35 percent of our training in those
simulators where we can train for those emergencies in real
time. And we think even though it subjects us to greater FAA
scrutiny, it is the way to train. It is what we should be
doing.
I would also speak in my remaining couple seconds here for
the young men and women that I work with all the time. They
would ask that at the completion of this rigorous program that
they could make a living wage. I think the combination of the
low wage and the commuting situation we have right now is very
challenging. If you are a senior captain and can have a home in
Florida where I live, it is a really good thing. But if you are
a young person making $22,000 a year, it is a lot of expense.
In closing, I would say Embry-Riddle shares the grief in
this tragedy. We have a young man--had a young man named Joseph
Zuffoletto. Joseph was a pilot for Colgan. He was dead-heading
in the back of the aircraft, and he was a graduate of our
Prescott program, an outstanding young man and an outstanding
young pilot. And we grieve for all the victims of the Buffalo
crash because the Embry-Riddle community grieves as well.
We thank you for your attention, and I stand ready for your
questions.
Mr. Costello. Thank you Dr. Ayers.
Captain Prater, in your written testimony you talk about
the fatigue cushion that was once provided and was negotiated
as part of the work rules has virtually been eliminated by the
airlines. Tell us why that is.
Mr. Prater. Chairman Costello, thank you. One of Captain
Babbitt's predecessors, I believe it was Admiral Engen, once
said, we don't have to change the flight-duty time FARs because
the ALPA contracts are more conservative. They are safer than
that.
I would say through the processes of bankruptcy, we have
lost many of the work rules that used to make our contracts
safer. They were above the FARs. I will give you some concrete
evidence.
As a new airline pilot back in late 1970s, early 1980s, I
would fly approximately and be paid for 75 to 79 hours a month.
That took in the credit time, so if my duty day was 15 hours
long, I was not paid or credited with just the 3 hours that I
actually flew. I was given a credit for, say, 5 hours. That
limited me to how many days I worked.
After bankruptcy, at Continental in 1983, we went to basic
FAR minimums. It has greatly increased the workloads of pilots.
What we have seen in the last round of bankruptcies following
9/11 is that has spread to all corners of the industry.
The regional industry was created to make up for the loss
of the national industry. We lost all the airlines like Ozark
and North Central. Those airlines were career pilot jobs. They
had career contracts. They had pension plans, if you can
imagine that. Now those are all gone. They have been replaced
because the major carriers are looking for a cheaper way to do
business. They created the regional industry, and they are at
the very minimums of pay, and they fly right up on the maximum
FARs, and we have been unable to change that through collective
bargaining. Hopefully we will be able to change that so that we
can make it a better job and make it a more stable career.
Thank you.
Mr. Costello. So the bottom line is it is all about money.
Mr. Prater. Not at all. I like to go home every night after
my trip. I want to get home. Over half of the founders of the
Air Line Pilots Association were pilots in their thirties, died
in airplane crashes. Our foundation as a union is based upon
professional standards. It is based upon increasing those
safety standards. We dedicate ourselves to that, and we charge
our members a very high rate to be part of that.
Mr. Costello. I think maybe you may have misunderstood my
question or my comment, and it is all about money where the
airlines are concerned as far as cutting back on the work rules
relative to fatigue cushion and a number of other things.
Mr. Prater. We are actually proud to work for airlines. We
want to do a good job. They are under tremendous competitive
pressures. They have gotten too low. The competition has led us
to look for every cut in every corner, and I believe that is
cutting into the fabric of the safety levels that we see.
Mr. Costello. Captain Prater, how does your--you heard Mr.
May talk about a centralized pilot record system, a database,
and others have mentioned that as well. How does ALPA feel
about a centralized database?
Mr. Prater. Well, obviously we are much more concerned
about the performance day in and day out. As Captain Babbitt
said, airline pilots are tested continually. There is a lot of
information available to our employers or prospective employers
about our performance. But just like hours in a log book, it is
what you do today, and you have to prove yourself day in and
day out. Whether a young pilot at Embry-Riddle failed a
maneuver on his commercial test, such as turns about a point or
spiraling maneuvers, and had to retake that provision, that is
not that important to an airline. Now, trend analysis, how many
failures, multiple failures on the same maneuver, that would
raise the awareness.
But there are no perfect pilots. I don't represent any. I
haven't been one. We learn by making mistakes. We are a safe
airline crew because we have got a first officer that is
trained at that same level and traps my mistake and catches it.
That is the foundation of airline safety in the cockpit.
Mr. Costello. Mr. Morgan, you state that Colgan recently
increased the minimum flight experience requirements for new
pilots and captain upgrade candidates. Tell us what the old
standard was and what the new standard is.
Mr. Morgan. The new standard was implemented in October of
last year, and that standard is 1,000 hours for minimum time.
The standard prior to that was 600 total time and 100 hours of
multiengine time.
Mr. Costello. Why did you find it in essential to increase
the minimum standards?
Mr. Moran. We didn't necessarily find it a necessity to
increase the time, but certainly with the market supply of
pilots that is out there today, you can go to a higher
standard, although we do feel as we move into a larger
aircraft, more experience was necessary to do.
Mr. Costello. You indicate also--let us talk a little about
bit about the stick pusher training. Colgan required that in an
academic sense, but not in a simulator; is that correct?
Mr. Morgan. That is correct, sir.
Mr. Costello. Why is that?
Mr. Morgan. The approach to training for the stalls has
been long done this way in the industry. But it is more of the
recognition and recovery from a stall rather than going full to
the stick pusher. This was something that is termed for a long
time, I believe, negative training. We wanted to take a
positive training step that says we are going to teach you how
to recognize that you are approaching a stall; when you reach a
stall, you recover from the stall. You should never reach a
point where the stick pusher gets activated. Therefore we felt
it was appropriate to make you aware that the stick pusher was
there, but not to train you, because you should never, ever see
it.
Mr. Costello. Mr. Loftus, would you like to comment?
Mr. Loftus. Yeah. I think that is a big mistake to make. I
can't see their logic behind why you wouldn't demonstrate at
least the stick pusher. It takes about 2 minutes to do that in
a simulator, to do it properly, to avail the students to at
least be aware of what is going to happen. If anyone has ever
been in a simulator and experienced that condition, it is like
a three-alarm fire, and to be able to think and make the right
callouts, it is--I don't know why you wouldn't want to do it.
Mr. Costello. Mr. Morgan, through--as a result of the NTSB
3-day hearings, it was revealed that Captain Renslow had four
disapprovals due to failed check rides during his career. Three
occurred before he was hired by Colgan and included failed
check rides for his commercial pilot instrument, his complete
commercial and his commercial multiengine certificate. What did
you know at the time? What did Colgan know at the time as far
as Captain Renslow's record when he was hired and then promoted
from first officer to captain?
Mr. Morgan. At the time, sir, what we knew was what we were
able to retrieve through the PRIA system and what Mr. Renslow
provided to us on his application. We used the 5-year
background check as reported under PRIA. We did not have
anything that was reported by Mr. Renslow as having any
previous failures. The failures that he had achieved or had
experienced while he was with Colgan, each of those we followed
the process to remove him from flying until he successfully
completed that check and moved on up to the next level, as any
other pilot would do when they failed a check.
Mr. Costello. The Chair now recognizes the Ranking Member
Mr. Petri.
Mr. Petri. Thank you very much. I thank all of you for your
testimony.
I have a lot of questions and little time, so I will do my
best to touch on a few highlights. And especially, Mr. Loftus,
you bring a concern and knowledge to this, and hopefully it
will be very helpful to us as we go forward.
In your testimony you emphasized, as I understood it, two
things really, the importance of experience and of training.
And really, I guess, being a pilot is--there is kind of a--you
learn tricks of the trade, in effect, by working with people
who have had the experience and passed that down, as happens in
many aspects.
You didn't really talk about fatigue. I know that is an
issue in transportation broadly, people driving, whether it is
any vehicle, and trying to make sure that that doesn't
overwhelm safety. I know that the investigation is still going
forward, but do you feel that that was a problem or is really
more training?
Mr. Loftus. I addressed it in my written statement a little
bit. But, yes, I do think it is a common problem; maybe not
with more experienced pilots. They know how to manage, they
have been there doing it 20 years, so they have learned to
manage their time. They are making more money, too. They can
afford to buy a crash pad or a hotel room or day room to get
their rest when they come in and commute. But many times I have
flown repeated hours--my hours at Express, 8, 10 legs a day,
and then have to fly Part 91 at night back to a maintenance
base, inherently very dangerous. These things need to be
addressed.
I think the commuting aspect needs to be addressed outside
the bargaining area. I think that is why it took us two tries
in the contract. In contract 97 they subsequently got it, at
Continental Express, a commuter policy, an effective commuter
policy which allows for pilots to get into the base, but it
also gives the company some protections, too, and some heads up
and things. And I think that would be a good--commuting is
going to stay around forever. Pilots are going to live where
they want to live. They are going to work where they work, and
follow the equipment they want to base by base. But I think an
effective commuter policy that works both for the airlines and
the pilots would be effective in this avenue instead of
regulations. I think no matter what you are going to do, people
are still going to live where they want to live. I think a
better way to attempt it, to solve the problem, would be a
commuter policy outside the bargaining area.
Mr. Petri. The whole plane was lost, the passengers and the
crew. They clearly had an interest in trying to operate the
plane's safety. They lost their lives as well. I am not an
expert, but it makes me think that training and preparation are
absolutely key, because the person has every desire to react
correctly.
Mr. Loftus. One of my favorite sayings was that there was
only one person's life that was more important on that aircraft
than the passengers, and that was mine. I wanted to be around
at the end of the day. I think every pilot has that feeling as
well.
Mr. Petri. One other area I wonder if I could just touch on
and that is alluded to quite a bit in the testimony, that is
the relationship between the major airlines and the commuter
airlines and whether there is adequate provisions for the
majors to supervise and ensure the safety of the feeder
airlines. And I wonder, Mr. Cohen, if you could address that.
Mr. Cohen. Thank you, Mr. Petri.
There is a number of these programs. All the programs that
you have heard about today, ASAP, FOQA, LOSA, those are shared
extensively throughout the regional industry as well. The
relationship between these carriers that--we have regular
meetings with all the mainline people, both directly and under
the umbrella of the associations, through the ATA and the RAA.
So there is quite an extensive interrelationship. It is one of
the reasons we are such enthusiastic supporters of the call to
action next week, that we can actually make this even--
institutionalize this even more. We are strong supporters of
it.
Mr. Costello. The Chair now recognizes Mr. DeFazio.
Mr. DeFazio. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Captain Prater, I would just like to give you some quotes
from some of your predecessors testifying before this Committee
from ALPA, Mr. Dwayne Worth: Pilots have been disciplined,
including terminated, for calling in fatigued. They have been
called in to see the chief pilot, which is, again, a varied
response depending upon the nature of the airline, nature of
the management team and whether they have the benefit of a
union contract. So clearly what we need is a Federal regulation
to make that a nonquestion of compliance.
That was 1999. Then, of course, we have the current FAA
Administrator from that 1999 hearing, Captain Babbitt: The
intimidation factor is clearly there. I could parade a string
of witnesses in here that would shock you. There is no private
whistle-blower protection. The pilots are intimidated. What
quite often will happen is pilots resist that and again I can
present hard copy where a pilot is terminated. We use
agreements machinery and defend them. In maybe 8 or 10 months a
neutral will give him his job back. In the meantime, who paid
him? I can assure you that is a lesson to the pilots. They are
intimidated by the carrier.
Does this still go on?
Mr. Prater. Yes. Absolutely. We still have managements that
believe they can push pilots by threatening them because the
flight must go on the trip must go on or we don't get paid.
I am saying the airlines--some airlines continue to battle
practices that were first created in the Lorenzo era, in my
time, maybe the Cord era in earlier times. They continue to
push pilots. They threaten them with terminations. And we see
it. We then win the grievances, and they refuse to reinstate
pilots.
So when we look under the covers starting next week with
Captain Babbitt, I will parade those people in here where we
are still seeing those practices. I will name names to Captain
Babbitt at that time and let them deal with it.
I believe that the major airline that sells the ticket must
ensure those practices do not exist within any of the carriers
that they use, whether they own them or whether they outsource
them to other contract carriers. But those practices are alive
and well, sir.
Mr. DeFazio. What would the representative of the regional
transport association say in response to that? Is he lying,
making it up?
Mr. Cohen. If those kind of practices exist, they should
not exist.
Mr. DeFazio. Okay. So we have been hearing this for 17
years. Probably there are hearings before that on this
Committee that I don't recall. I have just gone back to review
transcripts from 1992.
At least you are a little more in line here, but the RTA
representative back then gave me the example of what if you are
in Bend, Oregon, and the pilot says he is too tired to fly? I
said, great, I will take the bus back over to the valley with
him. I don't want to fly if he doesn't want to fly.
The point is, everybody--you, Mr. Morgan and the ATA--all
say, well, it is the pilot's call. It is the pilot's call. But
we are hearing from Captain Prater it is not the pilot's call
if he or she values their job in some of these organizations.
We have got to root this out. I mean, we just have to root
this out. I mean, I can't believe--I have been hearing this for
17 years, and we have heard it from the current head of the FAA
17 years ago, and it is still going on.
We have here a blind study. Dr. John Caldwell, a fatigue
management consultant for the Air Force and Army, his research
found that 80 percent of regional pilots surveyed they had
nodded off during a flight and that scheduling factors such as
multiple takeoffs and landings every day were top contributors
to operational fatigue. Do you acknowledge that we have got a
problem here?
Mr. Cohen. Mr. Chairman, Mr. DeFazio, issues of fatigue is
right at the top of the list of human factors, that we have
said that we need--as Mr. May pointed out, we need to be
looking at all of these issues, because it is time to address
all of these issues in a holistic way.
Mr. DeFazio. My key point over all the years has been--and
I made it to the earlier panel. If we adopt a standard that
everybody has to follow that prevents these problems, then
nobody is at a competitive disadvantage and you don't have to
worry about that one bad actor who is trying to drag everybody
down.
Hey, I can provide a cheaper flight. How can you do that?
Well, my pilots are tired, they are not as well-trained, my
planes aren't as well-maintained, the FAA doesn't really impose
those things on us.
We have got to get rid of that. That has got to go. If we
are assuring people of safety, then that stuff has got to go
and nobody is going to be at a disadvantage. Everybody starts
at the same place. I would hope the associations support robust
changes that will bring about an end to these practices.
Mr. May.
Mr. May. Congressman, I think from the ATA's perspective,
we absolutely do. We have said in the past--I mean, Dwayne
Worth and John Prater and Randy Babbitt have vastly more
experience in this industry than I do, so I am not going to sit
here and try to suggest they are wrong. But I think there is
now a forum, run by one of the three as a matter of fact, that
we will all be participating in next week.
I am sure the issue of fatigue and flight and duty time
needs to come up, should come up. I think the issues of
commuting and the impact that has on readiness, I think the
issue of professionalism of pilots needs to come up. All of
these issues need to be addressed. They need to be laid on the
table. There ought not to be any restrictions as to what
subjects are there. And if Captain Prater has specific evidence
of pilot pushing by carriers, I think we would welcome seeing
that put on the table.
Mr. DeFazio. Are you going to do that, Captain Prater?
Mr. Prater. I would be more than happy to.
Mr. DeFazio. Thank you, thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Costello. Sure. The Chair thanks the gentleman and now
recognizes the Ranking Member of the Full Committee, Mr. Mica.
Mr. Mica. Thank you.
I am pleased to see Dr. Ayers here from Embry-Riddle, which
happens to be located in my congressional district. It is
without question the finest aeronautical institute and
university not only in the United States but the world.
Everywhere I go I am proud to meet graduates in every field of
aviation industry who are absolutely outstanding.
I venture to say--and you don't have to respond to this--
that very few of your graduates are involved in some of these
issues, because I have never seen anything but, again, the
highest standards performed by those graduates who are--first
come so dedicated and then are so professional.
I am going to ask my staff to look at the background of
some of these flights where we have had fatalities just out of
curiosity to see the difference in training. I don't know if
you want to comment, Dr. Ayers.
Mr. Ayers. I certainly would. Let me expand upon my
statement a little bit.
We think that it is not how many hours a pilot has in their
logbook, but what was done, what was examined, what was
measured, what was trained in that hour. And we really stand
ready as a university with a deep research background to
provide some science to some of this discussion so we can see
what it really does take.
We think what we have come to--and on the second page of my
prepared remarks there is data that shows that our pilots, even
with fairly low hours, in the 500-hour range, score in the same
area where military pilots do. We are very proud to be in that
group. That is a very high echelon of aviation expertise. So we
do think that how we train makes a difference.
Mr. Mica. Mr. Cohen and Mr. Prater, do you favor opening
performance records and training certification to, again, the
employers without restriction?
Mr. Cohen. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Mica, absolutely. It is the
number one thing that we have proposed.
Mr. Mica. How about you, Mr. Prater?
Mr. Prater. I believe the full background should be
available. But that raises another level, sir, and that means
that those records have to be kept in some type of standardized
basis so we are comparing apples with apples.
Mr. Mica. Very good.
Mr. May, if I had a pound of butter and I spread it over 10
loaves of bread----
Mr. Prater. The answer is 14.
Mr. Mica. But then if I had a pound of butter and I spread
it over 20 loaves of bread, what would happen with the second
20 loaves of bread? Your answer is they get less butter.
Mr. May. I think that is the answer that is expected. I am
not sure that is the case with aviation safety.
Mr. Mica. What I want to do is take the number of
inspectors--I looked at the administration's proposal. There is
a 4.4 percent increase in safety operations. But we are also
mandating from Congress some inspections for foreign repair
stations that we already have being done at the same standards.
So we are taking personnel to do what is done--existing
standards and using those personnel where we don't need them.
Wouldn't you think it would be better served to spread that
butter where we need the coverage?
Mr. May. I think that makes ultimately good sense, Mr.
Mica, but it raises an interesting point. We have talked about
one level of safety here. I think on paper we have one level of
safety, certainly. It is called FAR 121. And we all, whether it
is a regional airline commuter, airline mainline carrier have
to live up to the principles and standards of FAR 121. The
question is whether or not it is being aggressively enforced,
audited, et cetera.
Mr. Mica. That is where spreading the butter thinner and
doing things we don't need to do--thank you.
Mr. May. May I have one moment?
Mr. Mica. No, I am running out of time. Mr. Costello holds
me right to the--he gives me a little bit of leeway as the
Ranking Member.
But I just want to get a question on the record about the
way compensation is determined for regional carriers. Now, I am
told it is a negotiation between I guess the union or the pilot
representatives and the air carrier. Is that the way it is
done, Mr. Cohen?
Honestly, I don't know the answer to my question. Mr.
Prater, I have been told--is there is a preliminary wage level
set and then is there--can you explain to the Committee how
that is done? Because I have heard a lot about wages and the
airlines are doing--that the regionals are doing this on the
cheap and pilots aren't getting paid adequate compensation or
copilots are getting far less than they should and pilots get a
certain--how is that compensation determined?
Mr. Cohen. At all but one of our carriers, every one of the
agreements for the crew members is collectively bargained.
Mr. Mica. That is a determination between, again, the
pilots' representatives and the airlines. And then the
difference between the levels, say, for a captain or the
primary pilot and the copilot or lesser position, is that also
part of that----
Mr. Cohen. Also all covered under the collective bargaining
agreement.
Mr. Mica. So it is agreed upon by the union or the
representative and the airline?
Mr. Cohen. Correct.
Mr. Mica. Thank you.
Mr. Costello. The Chair thanks you, Mr. Mica; and let me
thank all of our witnesses for being here to testify today, in
particular you, Mr. Loftus, on behalf of the families. I can
assure you and the family members who are with us and those who
could not be with us today that this Subcommittee is not going
to let this issue slip away, that we are going to work--we are
looking forward, as all of you are, to the meeting on Monday
with the Department of Transportation and the FAA Administrator
to see what comes out of that meeting.
But it is clear at least to me--I can't speak for other
Members of the Subcommittee--that we can no longer rely on
recommendations by the FAA, that some standards are going to
have to be changed. And I think we need to look at the
relationship between the major carriers and the regional
airlines, and I think we need to take a look at the training to
find out if, in fact--for instance, some of the issues that we
talked about today should be incorporated as mandatory training
as opposed to leaving it up to the airlines, to their
discretion.
Obviously, fatigue is a major factor. As Captain Prater
said, this not the first time that he has talked about the
issue before the Committee. We have heard others, not only
pilots but air traffic controllers and others within the
system, talk about their concern. We have heard testimony from
the Inspector General, we heard testimony from the GAO on the
issue of fatigue.
I think we need to look at pilot records and to determine
if we need a data bank and how far those records--how far we
can go back so that all of the airlines have access when they
are hiring a new first officer, a new pilot to know what that
person's record is, as well as all of the NTSB's
recommendations.
I, at least, feel at this point that with the new
administrator, given his background and his experience as a
pilot and with ALPA, that he understands the importance of when
the NTSB makes a recommendation that he is going to implement a
system to review those recommendations, figure out either, one,
implement them, two, modify them or, three, reject them and
give a solid reason for rejecting them and to get reports to us
and to the Congress on these issues.
So, again, we thank all of you for being here today to
offer your testimony; and let me just say that, again, we are
going to do everything we can to continue to focus, as we did
with the past administration, with this administration, to
follow our responsibility to provide the oversight so that the
FAA and others in the system are doing what they need to do to
continue to have the safest aviation system in the world.
With that, I would ask the Ranking Member, Mr. Petri, if he
has any final thoughts or comments.
Mr. Petri. No. We join you in the determination to stick
with this; and, again, thank you all for being here.
Mr. Costello. Again, thank you.
That concludes the hearing today, and the Subcommittee
stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 1:49 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
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