Wow you guys really missed the point didn't you? It's not about crashing airplanes, it's about improving the industry, the standards, and the expectations, if you're incapable of drawing the correlation, then maybe this isn't a good debate for you.

 

But the Colgan crash does not prove that EVERY low time flight crew that gets paid crap and doesn't get proper rest will allow their aircraft to slow to stall speed on approach and not be able to properly recover.

I DO understand your point...it is a valid one. I am all for hiring standards being increased...even beyond what I was hired with. But that does not mean that I consider myself to be a liability to my passengers' safety. There are exceptions to every rule.

 

I'd second that

 

I am SOOOOOOOOOO glad you put the smiley face behind that statement!

 

Your argument is like observing a slew of car crashes occurring by drivers from 25-65 years old, then drawing the conclusion that the minimum driving age needs to be raised higher than 16. Why? It doesn't compute.

I did catch much of the Colgan transcript. I heard what was said. But, I stand by the point that ATP mins doesn't do a thing to fix that and I reiterate that both were qualified to be there and had ATP+ hours. What goes into pilot qualification might be at issue, but a blanket hour minimum does nothing but make us with the hours feel warm and toasty.

I bet Marvin, sitting down over a cup of coffee, could tell you anything you needed to know about stalls and proper recovery. The planets aligned (or misaligned) that evening and all hell broke loose. The problem's solution isn't a simple "raise the standards" - crash history throughout commercial aviation doesn't support that argument. Perhaps a thorough study of human factors is mertied. That would likely shed more light on what happened than anything else.

 

If I were to say:

Having an ATP F/O requirement makes the industry less safe, how many of you would agree with that statement?

From a safety standpoint, how can you argue against requiring more experience for people to fly part 121 ops?

 

Actually, you are incorrect. Visit AOPA's website and do a search for their Nall Report. Flight time has a tangible, proven, direct correlation to accidents and incidents. The low time folks being the most dangerous, and oddly enough... the EXTREMELY high time folks have a bump back up from being the lowest risk.

The Nall report showed the under 100, 500 & 1000 to be the most dangerous

Slightly less risky were the over 1,000 and under 2,000 non ATP's

The ATP crowd was the least dangerous UNTIL they reached like over 25,000 hours and then was a small bump up again in accidents and incidents; but still well well below the under 1,000 crowd, and below the higher time non ATP's.

If you dig through the report enough, the general take is the ATP ticket holders are statistically the safest. People may not like it, but the stats are what they are.

 

Do the stats take into consideration that the VAST majority of the GA airplanes flying at anytime are being flown by private pilots with sub 1,500 hours?

Do they take into consideration that most ATPs are flying airplanes that have 2 engines, redundant systems, flight directors, radars, etc, whereas the weekend warriors are flying around 40 year old airplanes w/ steam gauges and handheld non IFR yoke mounted GPS systems.

Do they take into consideration that your average commercial airplane is subjected to much heavier mx checks than Bob's 172 that bakes out on the ramp all day long for weeks on end?

Stats don't always tell the full story.

PLUS: All these crashes happened with pilots that fall in that ATP bracket at the helm. There must be something else then.

 

The first half of 2008, Colgan was turning over close to 5% of its pilots each month (based on class size and how fast my seniority number changed). In my class (Saab late 2007) we had about 18 people. Only 2 or 3 had ATP mins, and only one actual ATP. So, you do the math.

 

We already know Colgan is part of the problem, I'm talking about industry-wide.