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Flight 3407 families outraged by delays on pilot training rules - Flight 3407 - The Buffalo News (http://www.buffalonews.com/topics/flight-3407/article912234.ece)

Updated: June 20, 2012, 12:14 PM

WASHINGTON—The Families of Continental Flight 3407 expressed their outrage Tuesday over what is likely to be years of delay in implementing the new pilot training rules they so desperately fought for.

The Federal Aviation Administration recently announced that it won’t finalize those rules until Oct. 19, 2013, even though the aviation safety law the families group pushed through Congress two years ago called for the training rules to be done by Oct. 1, 2011.

What’s more, the FAA said, implementing the rules will take an additional five years.

An FAA source attributed the delays to the huge volume of comments the agency received in the wake of proposing the new training rules last year, and to the difficulty stemming from implementing such sweeping changes at the nation’s airlines.

But the Flight 3407 families weren’t buying it.

“ ‘Unconscionable’ is the word that comes to mind; my sister Beverly would be absolutely livid,” said Karen Eckert, of Amherst, referring to her sister, 9/11 activist Beverly Eckert, who was among 50 people killed in the February 2009 crash of Continental Connection Flight 3407 in Clarence Center.

“It would be an absolute shame if history was allowed to repeat itself while waiting seven more years because of administrative red tape and delays like this, when the solutions are right there in front of us,” Eckert added.

The delay, which the FAA announced in a recent Department of Transportation report, affects a series of profound changes in pilot training that the agency proposed in May 2011. Under the FAA proposal, for the first time, pilots would have to be trained to recover from the kind of stall that sent Flight 3407 plummeting into a house. Pilots would have to be familiar with the stall-recovery equipment, which the crew of Flight 3407 was not.

If they failed test flights—as was the case with Flight 3407 Capt. Marvin D. Renslow— pilots would have to receive remedial training.

And pilots would have to be trained to fly in weather conditions they are likely to experience in their jobs and receive simulator training on sudden emergency “upsets” and be required to recover from them.

The FAA source said the changes are both broad and complex, leaving the agency needing extra time to review the hundreds of comments it received about the new rules.

In addition, the rules will take time to implement once finalized, in part because the FAA is also working with the airline industry to develop standards for the use of flight simulators in stall-recovery training, the agency source said.

“The FAA continues to work on a final rule to update the commercial pilot training requirements,” the agency said in a statement. “At the same time, the FAA is also aggressively working on additional efforts with the airlines to improve stall and upset recovery training requirements in advance of the rule-making.”

But to the Flight 3407 families, the delays were one more sign that the airline industry is getting in the way of safety.

“Once again, we are reminded that we can never relax, and that we must read the fine print in each and every one of these monthly government reports, or else these lobbyists are going to run circles around us,” said Scott Maurer, of Moore, S.C., whose daughter, Lorin, was killed in the crash.

This is about pilot training. Has nothing to do with rest rules.

First things first. CrewPass, then official Laser Incident reporting forms, and then stall training for airline pilots.

[QUOTE]This is about pilot training. Has nothing to do with rest rules.

My bad.

Wait a minute.......crews aren't trained to recover from stalls??

Maybe it's just canuckistan, but when I did my Ppc I had to demonstrate stall recovery froma number of attitudes, including one similar to 3407... Is that not done on checkrides down south of me?sorry for the naive question...someone please enlighten me?

Wait a minute.......crews aren't trained to recover from stalls??

Maybe it's just canuckistan, but when I did my Ppc I had to demonstrate stall recovery froma number of attitudes, including one similar to 3407... Is that not done on checkrides down south of me?sorry for the naive question...someone please enlighten me?

Money talks now. Primary Flight training is more of a business now than a passionate program to teach people how to become the best possible pilot they can.

Stalls are certainly trained. However, it seems as if they are now longer learned.

First things first. CrewPass, then official Laser Incident reporting forms, and then stall training for airline pilots.

Laser Incident Reporting forms?? This is a joke right?
A radio call and report to the FBI works much better

Must be on the same timeline as Known Crewmember:mad:

Maybe the title of thread should be changed.

Money talks now. Primary Flight training is more of a business now than a passionate program to teach people how to become the best possible pilot they can.

Stalls are certainly trained. However, it seems as if they are now longer learned.


I think the issue is not stall training during primary instruction...that training is pretty good.

The problem was that 121 training would only go to the first stall indication, then max power and pitch UP to maintain altitude. The idea being that you would recover from the situation before the actual stall occurred. Renslow used this technique to recover from an actual, not imminent, stall with predictable results.

I think most airlines are now training to full stall recovery. As far as I can tell that issue is moot now. Not sure what more they want.

I think the issue is not stall training during primary instruction...that training is pretty good.

The problem was that 121 training would only go to the first stall indication, then max power and pitch UP to maintain altitude. The idea being that you would recover from the situation before the actual stall occurred. Renslow used this technique to recover from an actual, not imminent, stall with predictable results.

I think most airlines are now training to full stall recovery. As far as I can tell that issue is moot now. Not sure what more they want.

I see what you guys are saying...I still don't understand why, regardless of what phase you are I'm-approach to stall or an a tual stall-you wouldn't just push the nose forward to get airspeed? Even if you havent fully stalled, unless you are 50 feet off the ground, what do you have to lose? Push the dang nose down and get your airspeed back, don't dork around trying to maintain your altitude. The only reason we are taught that is for checkrides standards. Nothing more.

I see what you guys are saying...I still don't understand why, regardless of what phase you are I'm-approach to stall or an a tual stall-you wouldn't just push the nose forward to get airspeed? Even if you havent fully stalled, unless you are 50 feet off the ground, what do you have to lose? Push the dang nose down and get your airspeed back, don't dork around trying to maintain your altitude. The only reason we are taught that is for checkrides standards. Nothing more.

"The only reason we are taught that is for checkride standards"....does that even make sense?

Aren't we missing the bigger picture here?

I see what you guys are saying...I still don't understand why, regardless of what phase you are I'm-approach to stall or an a tual stall-you wouldn't just push the nose forward to get airspeed? Even if you havent fully stalled, unless you are 50 feet off the ground, what do you have to lose? Push the dang nose down and get your airspeed back, don't dork around trying to maintain your altitude. The only reason we are taught that is for checkrides standards. Nothing more.


The old 121 stall training plan seemed to made some assumptions...

1) The stall warning (shaker) would work prior to stall
2) One of the two pilots would recognize it prior to stall
3) One of the two pilots would react properly prior to stall
4) The airplane would not be in an extreme aerodynamic situation which would make a stall a forgone conclusion.

In that case it would make sense to minimize altitude loss during recovery from the imminent stall. But that's a lot of assumptions...#3 (and maybe #4) failed in the case of colgan.

When asked to recite the stall-recovery procedure, say: "Are we talking about an airplane stall or a simulator stall?" :p

In a courtroom, stalling is not a good thing either. :p

The old 121 stall training plan seemed to made some assumptions...

1) The stall warning (shaker) would work prior to stall
2) One of the two pilots would recognize it prior to stall
3) One of the two pilots would react properly prior to stall
4) The airplane would not be in an extreme aerodynamic situation which would make a stall a forgone conclusion.

In that case it would make sense to minimize altitude loss during recovery from the imminent stall. But that's a lot of assumptions...#3 (and maybe #4) failed in the case of colgan.

Rick these are good points. I realize I wasn't there and had I been in the captains position, would I have reacted better? I like to think so...so it's hard to be critical, which I have been so far.

I think we need to start teaching stall recovery NOW, not later. Stall avoidance is no good unless you see it coming and have time to react. My company teaches us stall recovery (tho they do not test us on this) during training flights, and it's a very good tool IMO. It's frustrating the FAA wants to delay this. I don't understand it.

Another thing that my company uses that helps is that we brief our minimum speed on approach until on final. I believe, in the case of 3407, that was their second last chance to live. Had the captain briefed "minimum speed on this approach until on final is 140 kts"-or to that extent-the FO would have immediately started squawking as soon as the speed got below instead of wondering what the captain may be doing. Let's face it, while there are indeed FOs out there who would have spoken up, there are many who won't and will just let the captain do their thing for fear of creating a bad "cockpit environment" or other reasons...

Rick these are good points. I realize I wasn't there and had I been in the captains position, would I have reacted better? I like to think so...so it's hard to be critical, which I have been so far.

I think we need to start teaching stall recovery NOW, not later. Stall avoidance is no good unless you see it coming and have time to react. My company teaches us stall recovery (tho they do not test us on this) during training flights, and it's a very good tool IMO. It's frustrating the FAA wants to delay this. I don't understand it.

Another thing that my company uses that helps is that we brief our minimum speed on approach until on final. I believe, in the case of 3407, that was their second last chance to live. Had the captain briefed "minimum speed on this approach until on final is 140 kts"-or to that extent-the FO would have immediately started squawking as soon as the speed got below instead of wondering what the captain may be doing. Let's face it, while there are indeed FOs out there who would have spoken up, there are many who won't and will just let the captain do their thing for fear of creating a bad "cockpit environment" or other reasons...


I think most airlines, regionals at least, are voluntarily training to full stall recovery at this point. The FAA has gotten very forward-leaning on that issue.

The colgan crew was not paying attention whatsoever...I assume they briefed a straight-in speed, that's pretty much standard for all airlines. But briefing it doesn't help if you you're not scanning.

The problem was that 121 training would only go to the first stall indication, then max power and pitch UP to maintain altitude. The idea being that you would recover from the situation before the actual stall occurred. Renslow used this technique to recover from an actual, not imminent, stall with predictable results.

I think most airlines are now training to full stall recovery. As far as I can tell that issue is moot now. Not sure what more they want.

This emphasis on 'maintain altitude' in a stall was an issue that cropped up at many carriers in the past. And yes, it did result in pilots jamming the power on and pitching UP to maintain "minimum altitude loss" in the stall, usually 100', b/c that is, of course, ATP standards. Pilots were often encouraged to enter the stall maneuver, and then climb 60' or so as part of inducing the first indication of a stall, giving the pilots 160' to recover rather than 100'.

As a result of the Colgan accident, the industry and regulators responded in mid-2010.

From Airbus's Jan. 2011 'Safety First' magazine (though ATR, Boeing, Bombardier and Embraer have put out this info as well):

As an answer to the stall situation, a working group gathering the FAA and the main aircraft manufacturers, including Airbus, ATR, Boeing, Bombardier and Embraer, have established a new generic procedure titled “Stall Warning or Aerodynamic Stall Recovery Procedure” applicable to all aircraft types.

This generic procedure will be published as an annex to the FAA AC 120.
This new procedure has been established in the following spirit:

One single procedure to cover ALL stall conditions
Get rid of TOGA [max thrust] as first action
Focus on AoA reduction


Generic Stall Warning or Aerodynamic Stall Recovery Procedure

Immediately do the following at the first indication of
stall (buffet, stick shaker, stick pusher, or aural or visual
indication) during any flight phases except at lift off.

1. Autopilot and autothrottle.............................. Disconnect
Rationale: While maintaining the attitude of the aircraft,
disconnect the autopilot and autothrottle. Ensure
the pitch attitude does not change adversely when
disconnecting the autopilot. This may be very important
in mis-trim situations. Manual control is
essential to recovery in all situations. Leaving one
or the other connected may result in in-advertent
changes or adjustments that may not be easily
recognized or appropriate, especially during high
workload situations.

2. a) Nose down pitch control… Apply until out of stall (no longer have stall indications)
b) Nose down pitch trim................................... As needed
Rationale: a) The priority is reducing the angle of attack.
There have been numerous situations where flight
crews did not prioritize this and instead prioritized
power and maintaining altitude. This will also
address autopilot induced full back trim.
b) If the control column does not provide the
needed response, stabilizer trim may be necessary.
However, excessive use of trim can aggravate the
condition, or may result in loss of control or in high
structural loads.

3. Bank.............................................. ..................Wings Level
Rationale: This orientates the lift vector for recovery.

4. Thrust............................................ ....................As Needed
Rationale: During a stall recovery, many times maximum
power is not needed. When stalling, the thrust can
be at idle or at high thrust, typically at high altitude.
Therefore, the thrust is to be adjusted accordingly
during the recovery. For engines installed below
the wing, applying maximum thrust can create a
strong nose up pitching moment, if speed is low.
For aircraft with engines mounted above the wings,
thrust application creates a helpful pitch down
tendency. For propeller driven aircraft, thrust
application energizes the air flow around the wing,
assisting in stall recovery.

5. Speed Brakes............................................ ..............Retract
Rationale: This will improve lift and stall margin.

6. Bank.............................................. ..................Wings Level
Rationale: Apply gentle action for recovery to avoid secondary
stalls then return to desired flight path.


This should be basic aerodynamics to professional pilots (or, in fact, to any liscenced pilot), but I've included it in my post to ensure that it gets the widest decimation possible.

As for the Colgan families, there needs to be an understanding that current simulation technology is designed to replicate the aircraft to the stall, not in a stall itself. Once you actually get into a full stall in a full flight sim, all bets are off, since the sim is not certified to accurately replicate the aircraft at that point. It takes a LOT of computer power to run a sim as it is - to account for all the aero in an actual stall is hard, if not impossible, to do with todays sim technology.

Taking the plane out to do stalls is also not a good idea. Not only is it prohibitively expensive for the airlines, but past history has shown that this practice leads to additional loss of life. The instructor can't just pause the airplane if things go wrong, ya' know?

The recent Air France 447 accident, while much more complex than just an improper stall recovery, has shown that there are still weaknesses in stall recovery understanding that need to be addressed industry-wide, even after the Colgan accident.

I see what you guys are saying...I still don't understand why, regardless of what phase you are I'm-approach to stall or an a tual stall-you wouldn't just push the nose forward to get airspeed? Even if you havent fully stalled, unless you are 50 feet off the ground, what do you have to lose? Push the dang nose down and get your airspeed back, don't dork around trying to maintain your altitude. The only reason we are taught that is for checkrides standards. Nothing more.

Exactly.
I think finally the industry is getting away from preaching min altitude loss on stall recovery. We just had a big shift in this philosophy. I believe this was driven by the FAA finally acknowledging that powering out of a stall doesn't make sense when you have the option to pitch over and reduce AOA along with power.
My check ride last week had stall recovery using power along with pitch to reduce AOA, with no focus on maintaining altitude. Just like we all learned back in the old days.

I think one of the biggest problems is, as pilots, we're all taught that we stall when the AOA exceeds the critical AOA for the wing and then we go fly airspeeds and think XX is safely above stall speed...without ever being taught to the point of comprehension that stall speed is accurate for a specific set of parameters.

I'd love to see AOA gauges in every plane...since that's not going to happen, we need to focus our training on recovery from full stalls while minimizing emphasis on altitude loss.


Two books every pilot must read:

Stick and Rudder (Wolfgang Langewiesche)
Contact Flying (Jim Dulin)

I think the issue is not stall training during primary instruction...that training is pretty good.

The problem was that 121 training would only go to the first stall indication, then max power and pitch UP to maintain altitude. The idea being that you would recover from the situation before the actual stall occurred. Renslow used this technique to recover from an actual, not imminent, stall with predictable results.

I think most airlines are now training to full stall recovery. As far as I can tell that issue is moot now. Not sure what more they want.

No he didn't. The aircraft wasn't in an extreme situation. The airspeed simply decayed until the stick shaker went off. When it did, his immediate reaction was to pull the nose up to a unusual attitude - about 20 degrees nose high - and didn't use maximum power, and then continued to pull to about 30 degrees nose up. Once he pulled the nose up that aggressively, they were in a full blown stall, caused entirely by him. Then once he had that nose high attitude established, as the aircraft tried to roll over to the left or right, he used full deflection rudder to and aileron to help keep the airplane wings level nose high. Then she retracted the flaps which sealed their fate.

That wasn't procedure by a long shot no matter how you slice it or dice it.

That wasn't procedure by a long shot no matter how you slice it or dice it.

We'll never know, honestly. There is ample evidence of civilian training departments, including Colgan and Pinnacle, putting an emphasis on reducing the altitude loss in stall recovery until this accident - the sim check was a 'bust' if you recovered the stall, but lost more than 100' from entry altitude doing so. You could bust a 'stall recovery' maneuver in training by recovering from a stall successfully with little altitude loss.:(

These days, FAA POI's and Airline training departments sometimes overzealously enforce certain aspects of training. Couple this with the increased civilian training atmosphere, which more rigidly balances cost with experience than the military, and you have a situation where pilots, who have never actually spun an aircraft or seen more than a very benign stall in a forgiving piston trainer, are now piloting large complex aircraft, as well as training others to do so.

There is no substitute for experience, yet we sacrifice it at the alter of cost. Further delay of potential changes to antiquated FAA training rules is part of this path - reducing training costs will result in lower costs, and a less experienced (less safe?) pilot.

We'll never know, honestly. There is ample evidence of civilian training departments, including Colgan and Pinnacle, putting an emphasis on reducing the altitude loss in stall recovery until this accident - the sim check was a 'bust' if you recovered the stall, but lost more than 100' from entry altitude doing so. You could bust a 'stall recovery' maneuver in training by recovering from a stall successfully with little altitude loss.:(

These days, FAA POI's and Airline training departments sometimes overzealously enforce certain aspects of training. Couple this with the increased civilian training atmosphere, which more rigidly balances cost with experience than the military, and you have a situation where pilots, who have never actually spun an aircraft or seen more than a very benign stall in a forgiving piston trainer, are now piloting large complex aircraft, as well as training others to do so.

There is no substitute for experience, yet we sacrifice it at the alter of cost. Further delay of potential changes to antiquated FAA training rules is part of this path - reducing training costs will result in lower costs, and a less experienced (less safe?) pilot.

I agree with on a few points but beg to differ with you on the less experienced less safe part...

Both the pilots in the front of Colgan flight were decently experienced, none was less than 1500 hrs, the CA had enough flight experience....

Why he failed to recognise the stall, we will never know, why the FO failed to recognise the stall, we will never know......

What we definitley do know is,

# 1) They were both TIRED & FATIGUED......

The congress's knee jerk reaction was the pilot should be more experienced, they did nothing to implement the REST RULES.....

If you want to propose safety, then here's what every pilot should ask for:

The PILOT'S duty day should be NO MORE than 12 hrs DUTY & 8 hrs of flying & a 10 hour REST in between duty days. That will ensure a decent rest & sleep...

Even big rig TRUCK drivers have better rest rules......

#2) MODIFY THE STALL RECOVERY
The stall recovery procedures which say "need to recover in less than 100 feet" should be modified to say "recover with minimun altitude loss".

Stall recovery should include push the stick forward & nose slightly down to gain positive speed & the pilots to ensure that they are in POSITIVE territory & then once in a positive territory, proceed to recover back to original attitude & altitude....

I think the issue is not stall training during primary instruction...that training is pretty good.

The problem was that 121 training would only go to the first stall indication, then max power and pitch UP to maintain altitude. The idea being that you would recover from the situation before the actual stall occurred. Renslow used this technique to recover from an actual, not imminent, stall with predictable results.

I think most airlines are now training to full stall recovery. As far as I can tell that issue is moot now. Not sure what more they want.

Excellent comment! The problem was also that it didn't apply to just 121 training, but 135 and 91 operators with Part 25 airplanes as well.

I myself was shocked the first time I was told to not recover a Learjet conventionally, even a little, by pushing down at all. It went against everything that I had been taught previously.

Someone somewhere decided that, since no Part 25 airplane is actually in a stall, when the shaker goes off, there is no need to recover conventionally.

The term "stall training" for Part 25 aircraft operators is also a complete misnomer since no one is actually stalling anything. It needs to be changed to reflect what it really is.

I think one of the biggest problems is, as pilots, we're all taught that we stall when the AOA exceeds the critical AOA for the wing and then we go fly airspeeds and think XX is safely above stall speed...without ever being taught to the point of comprehension that stall speed is accurate for a specific set of parameters.

I'd love to see AOA gauges in every plane...since that's not going to happen, we need to focus our training on recovery from full stalls while minimizing emphasis on altitude loss.


Two books every pilot must read:

Stick and Rudder (Wolfgang Langewiesche)
Contact Flying (Jim Dulin)

An excellent point! Just look at all the references to "lowering the nose" in this thread, instead of reducing the angle of attack?

No he didn't. The aircraft wasn't in an extreme situation. The airspeed simply decayed until the stick shaker went off. When it did, his immediate reaction was to pull the nose up to a unusual attitude - about 20 degrees nose high - and didn't use maximum power, and then continued to pull to about 30 degrees nose up. Once he pulled the nose up that aggressively, they were in a full blown stall, caused entirely by him. Then once he had that nose high attitude established, as the aircraft tried to roll over to the left or right, he used full deflection rudder to and aileron to help keep the airplane wings level nose high. Then she retracted the flaps which sealed their fate.

That wasn't procedure by a long shot no matter how you slice it or dice it.


I agree that the old 121 technique should have worked if performed correctly.

The problem was that it puts pilots in the position of actually having to think during a crisis...apparently not all of us are up to that challenge. You have to decide whether you are in an imminent or actual stall and react accordingly. Probably safer to do like they do in GA, and treat every stall indication as though an actual stall has occurred and react accordingly.

There is ample evidence of civilian training departments, including Colgan and Pinnacle, putting an emphasis on reducing the altitude loss in stall recovery until this accident - the sim check was a 'bust' if you recovered the stall, but lost more than 100' from entry altitude doing so. You could bust a 'stall recovery' maneuver in training by recovering from a stall successfully with little altitude loss.:(



This is certainly the way it was done at both airlines I worked for, and as far as I know every other regional and at least some majors. Not sure how it evolved, but I'm sure the FAA was in the lead.

The FAA quickly changed the procedure after Colgan...we now do real stall training.

I

Two books every pilot must read:

Stick and Rudder (Wolfgang Langewiesche)
Contact Flying (Jim Dulin)
"Stalls, Spins, and Safety" by test pilot Sammy Mason.
Probably out of print but easily readable and one of the best books on stalls/spins I have ever read.

From his bio -

"Mason flew for more than a half-century and won acclaim in three arenas of aviation.
In the late 1940s, he was the premier performer of the air show circuit, commanding the highest salary of any aerobatic performer in the country. In 1976, he was named Flight Instructor of the Year by the National Assn. of Flight Instructors. Last month, the Society of Experimental Test Pilots awarded him an honorary fellowship, a distinction reserved for a handful of legendary fliers such as Charles Lindbergh and Jimmy Doolittle, to acknowledge pioneering feats accomplished during 22 years of test piloting."