And in an effort to try and avoid this becoming a flame fest, I hold no grudges here towards any types at work. We all just show up and do our thing and go home; It's just rough, on occasion, for someone to bring all their troubles with them into work and expect us all to deal with it instead of 'compartmentalizing' and simply just getting the job done. The 1500 hr limit for hiring would be interesting, if pay would become more commensurate with experience. Until then, im afraid we're stuck in the current predicament we currently find ourselves in.

Only one poster refuted the comparison to AMW 5481. Since I knew the CA and was at her funeral, I'll reiterate what that single individual said because Katie and Jonathan deserve that much.

AMW 5481 was caused by improper rigging of the elevator/trim system performed by contract (outsourced) maintenance. They were within the CG envelope using approved weights. It was the misrigging that improperly moved the aft CG limit forward just enough to make the A/C's actual CG too far aft to fly.

I am with you 100%. I can't believe no one else said something about the OP using them in comparison with this topic. That was probably one of the most tragic accidents in that the crew and pax died only a few seconds after being airborne, the CA and FO didn't even know what was happening. Very very sad, I heard that mechanic was never fired.

When the regionals, even the "bottom feeders", are forced to compete with the 135 companies for pilots, a pay increase might well come. Getting someone to work for 20k is easier when it is the only job he qualifies for. Getting someone to work for 20k AFTER they have had a job makeing 30k and up flying boxes is a tough sell.

While the link between 1500 hours and better safety is dubious, the idea a required ATP will increase pay is worse. It will do nothing to increase pay and those who believe it will are misguided. Only better economic times and better negotiating tactics will lead to higher wages.

Man your avater rocks, got any close ups of her, as...ahhhh I mean board?:D

I can make that statment because he would have just instructed until 1500 and still been hired just like the FO, just at a later date, so technically he would have been there but with what 800 hours less 121 experience, so probably same result. By the way the FO was hired at 1600+, and would have been there too, I think that they would have both been there that night regardless, now the question is had they been trained on the q400 differently would the outcome been different? How about better training oversight (which I have been preaching) Maybe his failures would have prevented him from being there???. In the end, a simple 1500 hour rule would not have prevented this.

or 800 hours more CFI time demonstrating stalls and observing students' errors.

Eclat Consulting - Aviation, Airline, Airport Consulting

Everyone knows what Babbit's job was before his appointed to the FAA post - right? He's been out of the pilot representation business for a long long time.

You can bet his solution will be what's best for airlines - not line pilots.

How do you know he would have just instructed till 1500 hours? What if he didn't have what it takes to become a CFI. After all the training, ratings and certificates I have, the hardest was my initial CFI. He may have given up and gone back to his old career. I know many people who have become CFIs and got burnt out in the industry and switched careers. He may have become a CFI and gone out and gotten himself and a student killed. He may have become a great CFI and built up his basic airmenship and the whole situation would not have happened.

I don't think there is one cure all to solve this problem but 1500 hours is a good start. To have quality hours you also need some quantity.

On the training side, I think there is much to be done. First of all, with a new airplane at an airline there is an extensive process the airline has to go through to get the aircraft certified to fly passengers. Because of economical restraints, ie being a cheap airline, the people that made critical decisions for the Q400 program probably weren't as good as the people who made the decisions at an airline like Horizon. I have gone through a lot of the information available on the NTSB's website and am not too impressed with some of the things I've seen. For instance, the POI failed training on the aircraft.

One of the factors I believe may have contributed to the crash is Colgan's normal landing profile. http://www.ntsb.gov/dockets/aviation...027/417476.pdf It says you shall be configured and done with checklists before the final approach fix. This to me shows that they wanted to be very conservative on flying the new aircraft but I think it may have had a large factor in the crash. At 22:16:07 the gear comes down at 176 knots. The profile calls for doing the landing flow after the gear comes down. I haven't found the "flows" on the NTSB site but by reading the CVR and checklist it looks like chiming the FAs, setting the props forward and setting the bleeds and standby pumps on. I don't know the Q 400 that well I've only jumpsat on it a couple of times but I would assume that the pilot doing the flow would be too wrapped up in doing the flow to pay much attention at what is going on with the airplane. While the FO was doing the flow the airspeed went from 176 kts to 140 kts. The airplane was straight and level while she was doing the flow. I believe this is the grave mistake. There is no reason to be fully configured in straight and level flight before the outer marker. The airspeed dropped 36 knots in 16 seconds with the gear and condition levers being moved. At 22:16:23 He calls for flaps 15 landing checklist at 140 kts. The FO now just finished with her flow selects flaps 15 and has her head buried in an 8 1/2 by 11 checklist, 3 seconds later the shaker went off and no recovery was made. So while a big configuration change was made in straight and level flight there was really only one pilot because the other one was busy doing flows and checklists. They could have easily done 170-180 to the marker dropped the gear over Klump done the flow set flaps 15 and been on speed by 1000'. After passing 1000 feet the FO could have then gone through the before landing checklist. It appears that the people who came up with the profiles were either afraid of the airplane, didn't know the capabilities of it or were just way too conservative. They also didn't have much real world experience to think they could go into EWR and be doing 120 kts outside the Marker while going in. This is something the FAA needs to be looking into instead of just approving an AOM/FOM without reading the contents.