FAA chief urges pilots to read Flight 3407...
 

FAA chief urges pilots to read Flight 3407 transcript : Home: The Buffalo News

FAA chief urges pilots to read Flight 3407 transcript

By Jerry Zremski
News Washington Bureau Chief


WASHINGTON — The new head of the Federal Aviation Administration today asked the nation's airline pilots to read the transcript of the cockpit conversations from Continental Connection Flight 3407, which crashed in Clarence in February, claiming 50 lives.
"If you haven't read the transcript, I'd encourage you to do so," FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt said at the Air Line Pilots Association's annual Air Safety Summitt.
The transcript shows Capt. Marvin Renslow and First Officer Rebecca L. Shaw violating federal "sterile cockpit" rules by discussing things that were not flight-related as the plane began its descent into Buffalo.
"This is not the first time this issue has been raised," Babbitt said, noting that sterile-cockpit violations have been found in other fatal crashes.
While noting that the FAA and Congress are hard at work to toughen flight safety standards -- most notably those aimed at preventing pilot fatigue -- Babbitt told the pilots that the government could do only so much.
"We simply cannot regulate professionalism," said Babbitt, a retired pilot and former president of the pilots union. "Safety comes down to one thing: it's us."
Babbitt also indicated for the first time that he would be willing to consider random spot checks of cockpit voice recorders in planes that do not crash, just to monitor whether sterile cockpit violations are occurring.


Really gotta love that last paragraph. Sets a dangerous precedent.
-MJ

Babbitt also indicated for the first time that he would be willing to consider random spot checks of cockpit voice recorders in planes that do not crash, just to monitor whether sterile cockpit violations are occurring.


Doesn't that pretty much do against all previous precedents for the use of cockpit voice recorders? Great, so in a career where you can already lose your job for a random medical issue, one misuse of the autopilot, checkride failure etc etc etc, now we're going to add spot checks of cockpit voice recorders. At least we're getting paid well....

Isn't that a direct violation of the FARS?

I even seem to remember an ATP written question specifically asking if cockpit voice recorders could be used in certificate or legal action.

dont forget the pay, treatment, and commuting issues, im sure commentary on life outside the cockpit wasnt alone what did this accident

Somehow I think babbit has the ability to change the FAR's. And yes this will set a very dangerous precedent

That rule is broken thousands of times everyday in regional, major, legacy and low cost carrier cockpits. There are more important things to look at. Sully violated it, the Continental pilots in DEN violated it, the WN pilots in Midway violated it, I'm sure Babbitt violated it on a daily basis. But, the Mesa pilots in Hawaii didn't violate it because they were ASLEEP. I read the whole CVR and found it not nearly as bad as I've seen in a cockpit. Violating sterile did not cause this accident.

I think Mr. Babbitt should read the USAir 1549 transcript where Sully and Jeff are talking about the Delta/NW merger during the push, then Sully calls ops on his Cell phone while they are monitoring tower for takeoff.

Doing an "audit" like FOQA could be argued as looking at trends. The FAA might do a sampling of a certain percentage of voice recorders and could come out with results saying "the vast majority of pilots adhere to the sterile cockpit rule from what we have seen" or "the sterile cockpit rule needs extra emphasis in airline pilot recurrent training based on the data we have sampled to date."

Just playing devils advocate as this would not be using the voice recorders for certifcate or legal action.

If there was ever a time for ALPA to do something... this is it.

More to the point, rather than monitoring pilot cockpit conversation, monitor senior airline CEO and FAA Bosses conversations. Their "stewardship" has led to this situation, where impoverished crewmembers struggle for a few hours sleep prior to extended duty after debilitating commutes, whilst the CEOs live the high life, and self-important FAA Czars pontificate with Fat-Cat Congressmen and Senators. This has deteriorated for 30+ years, and all the "connected" folk know it's really an extended game, played out for the Rubes. Sadly, it seems, now senior ALPA members have given in to the deteriorating status quo, and disaster after disaster will follow, and nobody cares, as long as connected peoples' bottom lines are protected.

Hey, if the parking brake is set, couldn't that call to ops be okay?