SonicFlyer

I don't disagree with that...

But remember that the Colgan pilots both had way over 1500 hours of experience.

rickair7777

There were others issues there (pay & commuting to NYC).

Also they were a product of the system that catered to extremely low-time pilots. Don't take my word for it, read the CVR transcript... it's in their own words.

dera

The CA was a P2F guy too.

Swakid8

Yes, a Delta Connection Academy graduate

SoFloFlyer

A perspective from a CFI who is a few months away from the 121 world..

I wouldn’t want the decrease in time required to be in the flight deck. 1500 hours did the regionals some good. Probably wouldn’t be a pilot if I were making $19k/yr. I made more working at the front desk of a resort making $10/hr right after H.S.

Now, someone else mentioned that 700-800 hours for things to start clicking. I totally agree. I couldn’t imagine flying a jet at 250 TT. I felt prepared/ready to take on the challenge of a jet at around that TT. How would I have actually faired? The world will never know.

I will say this though, regionals won’t increase the training footprint because that costs them A LOT of money. A recruiter once told me that it’s in the ballpark of $50,000 to train a trainee. I’m sure the actual numbers are not far from that if you include ATP-CTP, min guarantee, per diem, and hotels for a 2-3 months. I do believe that they’ll start paying for time building. It’s much cheaper, gets CFIs in sooner and they can drop the program when the next downturn happens (i.e. Republic pre-covid).

That’s my .02 anyways.

TiredSoul

You still get the experience, paid for or getting paid.
Doesn’t matter.
Here’s my point, he had 3200+ hrs.
He got hired at Colgan at 650(?) so give or take 2500 hrs of experience came from 121 operations. Same employer for that amount of time.
Now tell me that 900+ hrs of SE piston would have made any difference ?

Firefighterpilo

I think the point people are making is that since he was paying for his training they let him slip through the cracks. If a company was paying for his training they would have cut him loose and stop throwing away money on him. P2F was notorious for a lot of deadly accidents in the 90s and early 2000s because any one who had the money to throw away could fly those airliners. The P2F companies kept allowing subpar pilots to fly because not only were they not spending money on their salaries but the sub par pilots were actually paying the airline to fly their passengers.

TiredSoul

CPL at 190-250 hrs, got hired at Colgan at 650 which means he did 400-450 hrs P2F Beech 1900 at the most.
2500 hrs at Colgan flying 121.
Thar little bit of “sub par” P2F didn’t make a difference.
By the way that was also a 121 operation with training, checking and FAA ‘oversight’.

Firefighterpilo

Yes he went from paying a bottom feeder to then being hired by Colgan. Which at the time was the lowest paid pilots and a terrible reputation. Only low time guys or those with multiple skeletons in their closets worked there. It only took 2500 hours for the right circumstances to test his skills or lack there of. A lot of people lost their life in that accident and it made us all look Busch League when the reports came out. He had no business on a flight deck but by paying to fly and the desperation for colgan to find guys who would work for $19,000 a year the perfect storm happened. I am assuming you were not flying around this time?

Yes 1500 hours is an arbitrary number but the only reason the pay is what it is at regionals now is the changes made to the FARS after the buffalo crash. The safety record over the past decade shows that it had a positive effect. Not just for the unions like you are arguing but for safety and the passengers.

Swakid8

I’ll like to add that he had multiple training failures at Colgan.

Colgan was a **** operation at the time. There is a documentary floating about the operation that was eye opening and the way Chuck Colgan ran things there. It wasn’t great….