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NTSB seeks answers in NY plane crash
Flowers are left in memorial near the site where workers and investigators clear debris from the scene of the plane crash of a Continental Connection Flight 3407 on February 16, 2009 in Clarence, N.Y.
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STEVE CHIOTAKIS: Today, the National Transportation Safety Board kicks off hearings on that deadly February New York plane crash. Fifty people were killed when the plane went down just outside Buffalo. The NTSB will look into everything from weather to training, and even how
rested the pilots were on that day. Ashley Milne-Tyte reports.
ASHLEY MILNE-TYTE: The NTSB will want to know whether the first officer on the plane was too tired to fly. She arrived on a red-eye flight from the West Coast the same morning as the Buffalo flight. Mark Rosenker is acting chairman of the NTSB.
MARK ROSENKER: Fatigue in general is something which has remained on our most wanted list for much too long. And we're hoping that we can bring a good deal of visibility to the issue if this is something involved here.
The NTSB will also want to know why the aircraft stalled despite an automatic warning the plane was so low.
Bob Francis is an airline consultant with Farragut International. He says there's a standard procedure for reacting to that kind of alert.
BOB FRANCIS: Any pilot that's got the kind of training that they'd have, to me it's almost inconceivable that when they got into a stall situation that they would pull back on the yoke.
The yoke being the plane's control column. He says the pilot should have pushed down instead.
The NTSB says it will be several months before it publishes any conclusions about the cause of the crash.
I'm Ashley Milne-Tyte for Marketplace.
Well that sounds a bit haughty Lieutenant Whoever you are. This crew was qualified. Training issue yes. And the FAA and NTSB trying to keep salaries low? Uhhh what? Probable cause: FAA's inadequate aircraft certification requirements. FAA's inadequate pilot flight training requirements. Flight crew failure to maintain speed control. This aircraft is equipped with both a stick shaker and stick pusher. The shaker activates first, and warns of an impending stall. As the name implies, it shakes the control wheel continuously until the aircraft accelerates above the activation speed (AOA actually). The autopilot automatically disconnects when the shaker activates. If the aircraft slows further, the stick pusher fires at a speed just above the actual aerodynamic stall (AOA). A stick pusher is designed to push the control wheel forward with enough force to pitch the nose down below the stall angle. The force is actually applied only momentarily (about 2 seconds); as soon as a safe angle of attack is achieved, it releases the force. Currently, pilots are trained to recover at only the first indication of a stall, that means the shaker. They are not required to experience the pusher at all. Thus the only time a pilot will ever experiences a pusher activation is in the typical real life situation, on approach when you are low and slow. Because the aircraft is low, and because the nose-down pitching force is so great, the first reaction of a pilot who has never experienced a pusher activation is to apply back pressure in order to arrest the descent. At about that time, the pusher releases the push force while the pilot is pulling, and the nose pitches up in dramatic fashion, this time well above the stall angle of attack. The pusher likely fires a second time, but it is too late, they are in what is called a "deep stall". A deep stall occurs when the airflow over the wings blanks out the horizontal stabilizer, rending the elevator ineffective to pitch the nose down. Because the wings are aerodynamically stalled, the ailerons have very little effect to control the inevitable roll as one wing stalls before the other. At this point, the stall is only recoverable if there is a few thousand feet work with. The stick pusher has been around for over 60 years with its roots in early military jets. It is not installed on all transport category aircraft, only those that exhibit poor stall characteristics during certification testing. If you want my opinion, the stick pusher is one of the most dangerous contraptions ever devised for aircraft. I believe it causes the condition that it is designed to prevent, the deep stall. And why in heavens name would the FAA require a system to be installed and not require pilot flight training on it. But even with training, it is a bad system. Training only keeps you out of the deep stall, which might have saved these people. Even us test pilots who have experienced thousands of pusher activations still can't recover without a least a couple activations and a few hundred feet of loss. The crew's mistake my not have been enough to cause the accident. It likely took all three contributing factors to cause it.
The real issue in the crash of Colgan 3407 is not the training at Colgan nor the regional carriers per se.
There is a distinct difference between US Air Capt. Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger and Colgan Capt. Marvin Renslow … it lies in their education BEFORE they flew commercially!
Bet you didn’t know that a pilot for a regional or a major carrier doesn’t even have to have a GED.
Here’s the story:
In the early days of commercial aviation, almost all of the pilots came out of the military; virtually all had 4-year degrees from one of the service academies or an engineering school and had been immersed in procedures and mindsets by the military.
Commercial airlines, major or regional, would not hire pilots who did not have military pilot experience, or 4-year degrees at a minimum.
In addition to the academies and military aviation, there are some very highly rated universities that have fully accredited aviation science programs – the most prominent are Embry-Riddle, Purdue, and the University of North Dakota. For four years, almost every course reinforces the body of knowledge, procedures, issues, and engineering physics issues in aviation. Embry-Riddle actually does much of the training for the Air Force Academy and ROTC programs as a contractor.
These schools have a full complement of simulators, protocols mimicking major carriers, etc. Not only do their students take at least two Meteorology courses, but the courses are tailored to highlight the effect of weather on differing types of aircraft. Typical of a university, there are faculty with advanced degrees.
And, then there are the for-profit flight schools … and ex-pilot and a couple of buddies can set up a flight school or a “career center†that normally trains beauticians and air conditioning mechanics can “train†a pilot with the auspices of the FAA.
Can’t get into one of the universities, don’t have a high school diploma, no GED … no problem. In fact, part of their pitch is that they can get a student to a FAA Commercial license in 6-9 months rather than four years, with no wasted time for academics. This alternative route to commercial pilot has exploded in the last five years! These two Colgan pilots were an example of this “clear and present dangerâ€!
Theoretically, the FAA examiners are supposed to monitor the quality of the pilots … but, the schools are teaching to the tests and many examiners have friendly relations with their local flight schools.
Why do we have a situation where a physical therapist must have a BS degree, and a pilot doesn’t even need a GED?
The airlines own the FAA and to a lesser degree, the NTSB … they have a vested interest in keeping the number of available pilots with commercial licenses very high so that they can keep compensation rates low. The current situation is that a BS in Aviation Science with a commercial license for multi-engine can count on making $14,000 per year, climbing to $30K when they reach the regional carriers; by contrast, a nursing BS will fetch $70K.
Nurse screws up, Doctor screws up … one patient dies; pilot screws up … 50-300 people die!
At a minimum, any pilot flying a jet aircraft or a passenger craft with more than 4 passengers should have to have completed a four year degree (BS in AS) at a fully accredited university (as an academic institution and as an aeronautical science program) … without grandfathering for any pilots with less than 10,000 hours.
The real issue in the crash of Colgan 3407 is not the training at Colgan nor the regional carriers per se.
There is a distinct difference between US Air Capt. Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger and Colgan Capt. Marvin Renslow … it lies in their education BEFORE they flew commercially!
Bet you didn’t know that a pilot for a regional or a major carrier doesn’t even have to have a GED.
Here’s the story:
In the early days of commercial aviation, almost all of the pilots came out of the military; virtually all had 4-year degrees from one of the service academies or an engineering school and had been immersed in procedures and mindsets by the military.
Commercial airlines, major or regional, would not hire pilots who did not have military pilot experience, or 4-year degrees at a minimum.
In addition to the academies and military aviation, there are some very highly rated universities that have fully accredited aviation science programs – the most prominent are Embry-Riddle, Purdue, and the University of North Dakota. For four years, almost every course reinforces the body of knowledge, procedures, issues, and engineering physics issues in aviation. Embry-Riddle actually does much of the training for the Air Force Academy and ROTC programs as a contractor.
These schools have a full complement of simulators, protocols mimicking major carriers, etc. Not only do their students take at least two Meteorology courses, but the courses are tailored to highlight the effect of weather on differing types of aircraft. Typical of a university, there are faculty with advanced degrees.
And, then there are the for-profit flight schools … and ex-pilot and a couple of buddies can set up a flight school or a “career center†that normally trains beauticians and air conditioning mechanics can “train†a pilot with the auspices of the FAA.
Can’t get into one of the universities, don’t have a high school diploma, no GED … no problem. In fact, part of their pitch is that they can get a student to a FAA Commercial license in 6-9 months rather than four years, with no wasted time for academics. This alternative route to commercial pilot has exploded in the last five years! These two Colgan pilots were an example of this “clear and present dangerâ€!
Theoretically, the FAA examiners are supposed to monitor the quality of the pilots … but, the schools are teaching to the tests and many examiners have friendly relations with their local flight schools.
Why do we have a situation where a physical therapist must have a BS degree, and a pilot doesn’t even need a GED?
The airlines own the FAA and to a lesser degree, the NTSB … they have a vested interest in keeping the number of available pilots with commercial licenses very high so that they can keep compensation rates low. The current situation is that a BS in Aviation Science with a commercial license for multi-engine can count on making $14,000 per year, climbing to $30K when they reach the regional carriers; by contrast, a nursing BS will fetch $70K.
Nurse screws up, Doctor screws up … one patient dies; pilot screws up … 50-300 people die!
At a minimum, any pilot flying a jet aircraft or a passenger craft with more than 4 passengers should have to have completed a four year degree (BS in AS) at a fully accredited university (as an academic institution and as an aeronautical science program) … without grandfathering for any pilots with less than 10,000 hours.
