Airline Blames Crew for Buffalo Crash

[Kip Powick]

Washington (CNN) -- Colgan Air -- under fire for hiring, training, pay and commuting policies after the February crash of Flight 3407 near Buffalo, New York -- is blaming pilot error for the wreck, which killed all 49 people aboard and one person on the ground.

In a 67-page report submitted to the National Transportation Safety Board, Colgan blames the captain and first officer, citing a litany of lapses that Colgan said ultimately led to the commuter plane's crash.

Colgan said the crew did not respond appropriately to warnings the plane was entering an aerodynamic stall, did not complete checklists and failed to follow "sterile cockpit" rules that prohibit unnecessary conversation during critical phases of flight.

Colgan concluded the crash was caused by the crew's "loss of situational awareness and failure to follow Colgan Air training and procedures."

After the crash, Colgan said the pilot, Capt. Marvin Renslow, had failed three pilot tests, known as "check-rides," before joining the airline, but had disclosed only one on a job application. He failed another two check-rides while at Colgan Air.

In August, Philip Trenary, president and CEO of Pinnacle Airlines, the parent company of Colgan Air, testified at a Senate hearing that while "a failure on a check-ride is not necessarily a reason for someone not to fly, it depends on what kind of failure it is."

"The failures that we were unable to see were the basic fundamental failures that you would not want to have," Trenary testified.

"Let me stress one thing, Capt. Renslow was a fine man by all accounts," Trenary said in August. But he added, "Had we known what we know now, no, he would not have been in that seat."

At the time of the crash, Renslow had 3,379 hours of flight experience -- 172 hours in the Bombardier Dash 8-Q400 turboprop, the type of plane involved in the accident.

In Colgan's submission to the NTSB, the company describes its hiring process as rigorous. But, Colgan said, Renslow "was not truthful on his employment application." Renslow did not disclose two of the three proficiency checks he failed, Colgan said.

Colgan said it followed federal rules requiring airlines to seek applicants' records, but it was unable to get some of Renslow's information because "Renslow was not employed as a pilot at the time" of his failed check rides. At the time, there was no published guidance on obtaining information from the Federal Aviation Administration, Colgan said.

The airline also said Renslow and First Officer Rebecca Shaw did not manage their work schedules properly. While both operated flights out of Newark, New Jersey, Renslow lived in Tampa, Florida, and Shaw lived in Seattle, Washington.

During public hearings before the NTSB in May, airline critics said low pay led crew members to live far from their home bases, contributing to fatigue.

But Colgan said its pay and commuting policies were not to blame. Renslow had 27 hours between flights and Shaw had four days off before the crash, the airline said.

"Colgan Air expects its pilots, and all its employees, to present fit for duty, regardless of where they reside," the Colgan report said.

Shaw "did not plan her personal time properly prior to reporting to duty," the airline said. "Rather than commuting to [Newark] on February 11 and staying in a hotel, she chose an overnight commute."

Shaw earned $26 an hour and was guaranteed 75 hours a month, putting her salary at a minimum of $23,400 a year, Colgan said. But she was on pace to earn "well in excess" of the minimum, the airline said.

In a separate submission, the Air Line Pilots Association did not discount the role of the pilots, but said the "fundamental training this crew needed for the situation faced the night of the accident was inadequate." Further, the association said, the Q400 aircraft did not have, nor was it required to have, systems that would have alerted the pilots that the airspeed was abnormally low.

The NTSB is investigating the crash.

Evidence collected by the NTSB suggests the crew improperly responded to signs the plane was approaching an aerodynamic stall, pulling on the aircraft's control column instead of pushing.

[planett]

Sadly, after reading this and many other reports, I can't see any changes happening that could prevent the next accident with similar contributing factors.

[Guest rattler]

Interesting note re the companies manual vs the one issued by Bombardier.....

Colgan, ALPA debate February Q400 accident

Tuesday December 15, 2009

Colgan Air and the Air Line Pilots Assn. issued contradictory findings regarding the cause of the February Q400 crash that killed 50 people near Buffalo. The airline said the pilots' "loss of situational awareness and failure to follow Colgan Air training and procedures," along with a lack of low-speed warnings from the aircraft, were the principal causes, while the union blamed the carrier for inadequate training (ATWOnline, May 15). The reports were filed last week with the National Transportation Safety Board and cited by The Buffalo News.

ALPA argued that Colgan reduced four pages in Bombardier's operating manual on flying during icing conditions to a single paragraph in the airline manual, while the carrier defended its "robust safety culture" and its accident-free record from its 1991 launch to the time of the crash. "Contrary to his Colgan Air training, the captain did not add full power after the onset of the stick shaker. Instead, the captain waited three seconds after the onset of the stick shaker before increasing the power to only 75% torque" and pulling back on the yoke, Colgan said. ALPA said that a video Colgan shows its pilots instructs them to pull back on the yoke and lower the flaps when encountering a tailplane stall rather than a wing stall, which likely is what doomed the aircraft. "It appears that the crew of Flight 3407 did not recognize the condition they were in," the union said. "The Colgan training was incomplete, incorrect and did not provide this crew with the tools they needed to appropriately manage this event."

The airline said stick pusher simulator training is "not a standard procedure" in the industry and that Capt. Marvin Renslow did two sessions in a Saab 340 simulator including hands-on stick pusher training. The parties also disagreed about whether the pilots were sufficiently rested or subject to unreasonable commuting.

[SkyBlazer]

As such, it is a cynical, pre-emptive public relations exercise which to me indicates that they see a problem and are using the standard, age-old tactic of getting their version out first by blaming dead pilots.

Cmon, I think its a little weak to use this example in the so called 'age-old tactic of blaming dead pilots"

This guy was weak from top to bottom.

From day 1 we learn as pilots to recognize and recover from a stall - the symptoms and characteristics regardless of type never change -

This was a weak pilot that unfortunately didn't have the advantage of having a strong f/o to watch his back.

While Colgan is far from innocent I think this one should indeed rest on the PIC.

SB

[Spinnaker]

To add to Skyblazer's comment. The Captain at Colgan had less hours than probably 99% of the First Officer's that are operating Dash 8's in Canada.

[SkyBlazer]

Don,

A well written response and to the fact that there are far more issues than a "weak" pilot I agree.

I perhaps read the context in your post wrong in that I saw or perceived an emphasis on calling the company in poor taste for blaming the pilots.

As a Pilot if I want respect I have to earn it - through my knowledge and my skill proven and improving continually over time.

I have always had little empathy for failed check rides (yes everyone may have the one bad ride day in their career) ...but multiple failures on separate occasions are unacceptable to me and risk the integrity of our profession.

I have no respect for any company that keeps the employ of a pilot who cant hold their own or barely passes each ride - This pilot and this case did little to build the confidence of our passengers and to that I guess in summary I hold both the company and the pilot at fault.

Regards

SB

[SkyBlazer]

Agreed

SB

[FLARE]

That said, the industry has a long way to go before organizational factors well upstream of the accident, are taken to the next step and the leaders of the organization as well as flight crews, where indicated are held to account. So far, that SMS concept seems stuck on paper and those leading the organization who may have fallen equally short in assuring maximum flight safety levels by leading with a high degree of intolerance for risk-taking, remain immune while flight crews pay.

Don,

I agree with you. It is too easy to blame a crew instead of looking at the corporate level. The way I see it, SMS is going to work (maybe) only in a decade or so, if it is implemented differently.

It is to easy for a company to cut in its staff (or the quality of it) and get the immediate financial benefit without immediate repercussion to safety. Sooner rather than later a day comes when the risk that used to be mitigated by professional trained safety people is handed over to people that think they know they are doing the right thing for the employer. Unfortunately these people will get into trouble situations and blame the pilots for not stopping it. To top it all, these people will probably say, the Captain made the final decision.

Under this current way of SMS implementation, pilots are not aware that a safety net that used to exist is being dismantled. In other words, pilots do not know that uninformed/un-trained people are making decisions/recommendations that could impact them and their passengers negatively but leave the corporate level exempt from repercussions

[cp fa]

I have no respect for any company that keeps the employ of a pilot who cant hold their own or barely passes each ride

How much of a role does unionism play in this? Not necessarily in this case, but in general? Do most pilots know what lengths their union will or will not go to to keep a weak candidate employed, and are those measures considered reasonable among the membership?

[Kip Powick]

How much of a role does unionism play in this? Not necessarily in this case, but in general? Do most pilots know what lengths their union will or will not go to to keep a weak candidate employed, and are those measures considered reasonable among the membership?

oooooooooooooooooooooooooh ! Jenn, you have opened a can of worms

There will NEVER be agreement as to how far a Union should go to protect their ,"snuck under the wire pilots".

Every pilot probably knows of a pilot who causes others to wonder how he got to where he is but........................?

In my years, I saw one volunteer retirement cause he just couldn't take the stress the investigation, (non-fatal incident), would cause...he was ex-Mil, (7 years only), and when he was in the Mil we wondered about his qualifications.

The other was a guy who held a bogus licence..he did not have an actual ATR and he was let go.

Good luck with the question

[AME]

Don

If one of the contributing factors is determined to be the pay of the F/O, and it turns out that ALPA had recommended the current contract to the membership, would it not be reasonable that they could be considered at least partly liable? and given that could the membership themselves be held liable for voting to accept the low pay?

Everyone seems quick to blame the low wages on the companies but they sometimes forget it was their choice to accept them. (unless they were arbitrated of course which opens a another can of worms)

B

[canadairguy]

I'm not defending Colgan but to be fair, Kip's original post was CNN's summary of the company's 67-page statement. The Colgan statement is not a press release. It is a submission to the NTSB for consideration by the Board in the finalization of the accident report. To the NTSB's credit, all such submissions are in the public domain. I don't claim to have read the entire submission but if you're so inclined, it's at

http://www.ntsb.gov/Dockets/Aviation/DCA09MA027/431210.pdf

ALPA's submission is at

http://www.ntsb.gov/Dockets/Aviation/DCA09MA027/431209.pdf

and the brief submission from the United Steel Workers (who represent Colgan's flight attendants) is at

http://www.ntsb.gov/Dockets/Aviation/DCA09MA027/431211.pdf

[DEFCON]

“It wasn't too long before the two crew members of the Northwest flight which missed all communications began pointing at one another.”

In spite of all the blustering, CRM and other so called ‘team’ building activities that go on in pilot world, a little challenge will almost always cause pilots to abandon any sense of ‘team’ and revert to an every man for himself posture.

I compare the above notion of ‘team’ to that practiced by the ‘cops’, themselves constantly being accused of keeping their stories straight all the way and through to whatever the outcome?

[Don Hudson]

Link to the story.

Crash: Colgan DH8D at Buffalo on Feb 12th 2009, impacted home while on approach

Aviation Herald

By Simon Hradecky, created Tuesday, Feb 2nd 2010 15:53Z, last updated Tuesday, Feb 2nd 2010 19:44Z

(developing story as the board meeting progresses)

Today the NTSB conduct their final board meeting to determine the probable cause of the crash in preparation of the final report.

The chair said, that it was the first investigation in 15 years to be completed and the final board meeting done within a year after a crash.

23 safety recommendations have been drafted to be released to the FAA. Recommendations regarding pilot professionalism and code sharing going beyond the Colgan accident have not yet been drafted. The issues will be discussed in a symposium later the year.

The final report will be released in due time.

The presentations before discussing the probable cause stated:

Moderate icing conditions had been forecast for the flight prompting the captain, pilot flying, to select the airspeed protection (icing) to the increased setting, which lowered the angle of attack necessary to trigger the stall warning/stick shaker activation and thus increased the airspeed at which the stick shaker would activate by about 15 knots. The first officer, pilot monitoring, however computed a reference speed of 113 knots without taking icing into account, thus selecting an airspeed below the stick shaker activation of 130 knots. The reference speed should have been increased by 20 knots to a 138 knots. ACARS traffic with dispatch and the airplane performance monitoring shows, that icing settings were not selected/transmitted, so that ground facilities did not provide an increased Vref speed.

In configuring the airplane for landing including deploying flaps and lowering the gear the airspeed reduced by about 1 knot per second, which is fairly standard.

Upon stick shaker activation, which also deactivated the autopilot so far engaged, the captain pulled on the control column and applied power however did not advance the throttle levers to the maximum power detent. The airplane had only minimal ice accretion and was way above actual stall speed. The pull of the control column to pull about 1.4G, nearly 1.5G - inappropriate response to the stall warning and not consistent with any pilot training - increased the pitch and angle of attack and brought the airplane into an accelerated stall from which the crew failed to recover.

Neither pilot commented or took action on the visible low speed cues. There is insufficient evidence to determine why the low speed cue was missed by the captain. The first officer was engaged with other tasks.

While there have been many incidents and accidents before, in which pilots failed to monitor their instruments appropriately, there has never been a case before in which a crew member has reacted as stunningly as this captain.

The resulting crash was not surviveable. There were no pre-impact deficiencies of the aircraft, ATC was no factor into the crash. Weather conditions were normal for the year, the airplane had accumulated minimal ice accretion, which did not impact aerodynamics performance of the airplane. The de-icing systems were fully functional, no degradation of the system was recorded despite the extensive monitoring of the system's functions. Any degradation of the de-icing system would have become visible on the flight data recorder. The airplane remained fully controllable, the actual stall speed was close to the stall speed expected for a clean (no ice) aircraft. The airplane is not suspectible to tail plane stall.

The captain's inputs were not consistent with pilot training or reaction to a stall warning, but were consistent with surprise and confusion. The captain had a history of failing simulator training sessions.

Earlier in his career the captain had received training on the Saab 340, which is suspectible to tail plane stall and provides a stick pusher. This may have led the captain to believe, the Dash 8 was suspectible to tail plane stall.

Training at Colgan complied with industry standards but did not require to include training of recovery from a fully developed stall, did not include the element of surprise, autopilot disconnect or the increased stall speed setting (icing).

The civilian pilot certification just states, that a test was passed, however does not take into account the performance during the test or the number of tests failed before passing the test. This allows pilots to receive certification which would be "washed out" in the military pilot selection process and leaves pilots in the system, which are not really capable of being pilots. The investigation was an "eye opener" in that respect.

The crew squandered time and attention in conversation that should have been used to attend operational tasks. The male captain did most of the talking giving the impression, that the flight was just a means to him to talk to the female first officer.

The Dash 8-400's primary flight display does not provide a yellow "low speed" caution above the red "low speed" warning on its airspeed indicator and thus is not consistent with current recommendations and requirements. Crew perceive, that as long as the indicated airspeed is within the "black band", the speed is normal. Therefore if such a caution band had been available on the display, it would have likely raised a "red flag" with the crew.

Colgan's flight crew manuals did not provide any information about the symbology used on the air speed indicator, especially it did not explain the red band and that the stick shaker would activate upon reaching the top of the red band. A board member got the impression from talks with Colgan pilots, that they were not aware, that the red band was fundamentally equal to a barberpole, the airplane should never ever been flown into. The documentation as well as the checklists did not include the Vref switch creating the opportunity for confusion. Colgan actually did not have a full fledged manual to provide for their crew, just an interim manual that showed a lot of deficiencies and is seriously inferior to the de Havilland/Bombardier aircraft operations manual (AOM). The interim manual had been approved by the FAA however.

The Bombardier AOM creates confusion, too, by containing procedures in the landing section, which raise the impression of the airplane being suspectible to tail plane stall. When asked about that paragraph, Bombardier replied that paragraph was left in the AOM in error. The board member voiced the opinion, that the AOM was not thorougly worked through.

In discussing the AOM the board members agreed, that the captain pulling back on the control column would be consistent with the procedures for a tail plane stall and would be consistent with an 8 minutes FAA video about tail plane stall. The captain however did not take enough time to analyse the situation, his reaction therefore is consistent with being startled and confused. The first officer retracting the flaps supports, that the crew was following procedures for a tail plane stall.

Pilots holding ATPLs are not required to obtain or maintain proficiency in full stall recovery. The reason is, that pilots need to demonstrate capability to recover from full stall during their ab initio training. The full flight simulators are not capable of providing fidelity in a full stall scenario. Regulations therefore only require, that recovery from an approach to stall is being demonstrated during simulator training, but do not require to demonstrate a recovery from a fully developed stall.

Sterile cockpit requirements below 10000 feet were violated by the flight crew. Prior to the accident monitoring by FAA had not identified any concern with Colgan in that regards, following the accident the FAA identified several areas of concern. Colgan in the meantime provided their air crew with additional guidance. Pilots (intentionally) diverting from standard operating procedures like the sterile cockpit environment are three times more likely to make additional errors with consequences, studies and previous accidents and incidents have shown. In this flight the conversation clearly took precedence over operational tasks, although the conversation stopped about 2 minutes before the low speed cues appeared. "You do not adhere to standard operating procedures for flights where everything goes smooth, you adhere to standard operating procedures for flight where everything goes sour." The crew had completed all relevant checklists for the phase of flight at the onset of the stick shaker, however were doing some of the checklists late.

[yul07]

The Animation is down right scary!

http://www.ntsb.gov/Events/2010/Clarence-Center-NY/AnimationDescription.htm

************************************************************

NTSB PRESS RELEASE

************************************************************

National Transportation Safety Board

Washington, DC 20594

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: February 2, 2010

SB-10-02

************************************************************

CAPTAIN’S INAPPROPRIATE ACTIONS LED TO CRASH OF FLIGHT 3407

IN CLARENCE CENTER, NEW YORK, NTSB SAYS

The National Transportation Safety Board determined that the

captain of Colgan Air flight 3407 inappropriately responded

to the activation of the stick shaker, which led to an

aerodynamic stall from which the airplane did not recover.

In a report adopted today in a public Board meeting in

Washington, additional flight crew failures were noted as

causal to the accident.

On February 12, 2009, a Colgan Air, Inc., Bombardier DHC-8-

400, N200WQ, operating as Continental Connection flight

3407, was on an instrument approach to Buffalo-Niagara

International Airport, Buffalo, New York, when it crashed

into a residence in Clarence Center, New York, about 5

nautical miles northeast of the airport. The 2 pilots, 2

flight attendants, and 45 passengers aboard the airplane

were killed, one person on the ground was killed, and the

airplane was destroyed by impact forces and a postcrash

fire. The flight was a 14 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR)

Part 121 scheduled passenger flight from Newark, New Jersey.

Night visual meteorological conditions prevailed at the

time of the accident.

The report states that, when the stick shaker activated to

warn the flight crew of an impending aerodynamic stall, the

captain should have responded correctly to the situation by

pushing forward on the control column. However, the

captain inappropriately pulled aft on the control column and

placed the airplane into an accelerated aerodynamic stall.

Contributing to the cause of the accident were the

Crewmembers’ failure to recognize the position of the

low-speed cue on their flight displays, which indicated that

the stick shaker was about to activate, and their failure to

adhere to sterile cockpit procedures. Other contributing

factors were the captain’s failure to effectively manage the

flight and Colgan Air’s inadequate procedures for airspeed

selection and management during approaches in icing

conditions.

As a result of this accident investigation, the Safety Board

issued recommendations to the Federal Aviation

Administration (FAA) regarding strategies to prevent flight

crew monitoring failures, pilot professionalism, fatigue,

remedial training, pilot records, stall training, and

airspeed selection procedures. Additional recommendations

address FAA’s oversight and use of safety alerts for

operators to transmit safety-critical information, flight

operational quality assurance (FOQA) programs, use of

personal portable electronic devices on the flight deck, and

weather information provided to pilots.

At today’s meeting, the Board announced that two issues that

had been encountered in the Colgan Air investigation would

be studied at greater length in proceedings later this year.

The Board will hold a public forum this Spring exploring

pilot and air traffic control high standards. This

accident was one in a series of incidents investigated by

the Board in recent years - including a mid-air collision

over the Hudson River that raised questions of air traffic

control vigilance, and the Northwest Airlines incident last

year where the airliner overflew its destination airport in

Minneapolis because the pilots were distracted by non-flying

activities - that have involved air transportation

professionals deviating from expected levels of performance.

In addition, this Fall the Board will hold a public forum

on code sharing, the practice of airlines marketing their

services to the public while using other companies to

actually perform the transportation. For example, this

accident occurred on a Continental Connection flight,

although the transportation was provided by Colgan Air.

A summary of the findings of the Board's report are

available on the NTSB's website at:

http://www.ntsb.gov/Publictn/2010/AAR1001.htm

-30-

[Kip Powick]

See Don Hudson's posting of 02 Feb and the NTSB findings here...........

DH last post in this thread

[DEFCON]

I have some difficulty accepting the notion the F/O selected 'flaps up' because she interpreted events as a tail plane stall. From my read, crew discipline / coordination was never present and the event itself was little more than a demonstration in incompetence. IOW's; a giant goat-screw during which both pilots simply did 'their own thing'?

[Guest rozar s'macco]

I think pilot pay at the regionals is the root cause. In the drive to lower fares, to expand markets, to keep them at a level where the average person (whose pay hasn't gone up either) able to travel, the industry has lost the ability to attract the median level of competence it used to. No, the amount of money in their bank accounts didn't cause an aerodynamic stall in icing conditions, but if we strip away the layers that's basically what is comes down to.

Airline pilot is a job that looks easy, but takes a high functioning individual mentally and physically to be able to make it look that way. Not just "anybody" can do it, and that is a fact.

A bit of background; I'd classify myself as among the last cohort of high school students who embarked on post-secondary education and career training without the benefit of internet research. I finished high school in 1996, and remember it being a pretty sweet deal to get an email account at college. Anyhow, "back then" one was basically at the mercy of one's parents, guidance counsellor, and one's tiny sliver view of the real world when deciding on a career. I had no idea what the job of pilot entailed (outside of B747 captains) when I made the choice, utterly blindly. Turns out I love it, lucky me.

Now, there is almost no excuse for that kind of ignorance. Industry forums like this one provide huge insight for outsiders into working conditions, pay scales, qualifications, the job market. So why would any intelligent person become a pilot in the USA these days? Crap working conditions, crap odds, crap economy, crap companies, terrorism, security, crap hotels, and below it all, crap pay...why even bother? It's only going to get worse, in that drive to keep domestic fares below $200. We're on the same track here, just a little higher up the graph.

How long can "love of flying" keep this thing afloat? At some point good people say hey, at $24K a year it's just not worth it. And then you can no longer get good people.

[apple]

There is the model of employee compensation being tied to the company performance. Is it right, wrong or insignificant? My impression is that new companies on this system tend to thrive and the traditional try to adapt with little success.

[DEFCON]

rozar

“I think pilot pay at the regionals is the root cause. In the drive to lower fares, to expand markets, to keep them at a level where the average person (whose pay hasn't gone up either) able to travel, the industry has lost the ability to attract the median level of competence it used to. No, the amount of money in their bank accounts didn't cause an aerodynamic stall in icing conditions, but if we strip away the layers that's basically what is comes down to.”

Even though I can agree with you to some degree, I also think you might be painting too wide a stripe?

Let’s take a look at the Jazz situation for a moment. Although there’s room for a lot of improvement, Jazz pilots aren’t paid all that poorly. When it comes to experience, the top half of the seniority list is as experienced a group of aviators as any other and more so than many. The bottom half of the list has considerably less.

If pay were the only motivator, the Jazz list would look a whole lot different than it does today. Jazz does not suffer from a lack of competant people. As the Buffalo crash shows, Jazz’s US counterparts might?

For the record, twenty five + years back, ‘a pilot candidate for the ‘original’ GX required 5000 hrs TT with 2500 PIC & 2500 hrs turbine time. Standards have slowly devolved with time and todays wise man believes ‘Air Cadet’ programs are the way of the future; the concept itself being global and originally the product of the ‘main line’ carrier.

So now let’s take a look at AC. Even though the long term ‘potential’ pay is better than it might be with Jazz, WJ or any of the others, it too fails to attract experience?

In reality, the AC Regional’s became a training ground for AC. As time went on, post 1995, the new Jazz F/O’s came aboard with ever less real world experience, stayed for 6 months to a few years, and then moved directly into the right seat at AC. Soon on, that same trend extended to the left seat of AC aircraft, and in spite of the greater pay potential etc, experience remained difficult to attract?

As it is, todays AC cannot achieve or maintain the financial benefits that experience once brought to its cost / safety equation.

[Guest rozar s'macco]

Firstly, apple. Employee compensation tied to company performance is perfect for a sales organization. A pilot though, is essentially paid to say "no". No, it's not safe. No, we're not going now. No, we can't do that. Safety, it is said often, costs money. Pilots are there to spend that money, so in effect, we are an impediment to "performance" in the financial sense. Paying pilots for performance is, at it's basest level, little more than a bribe to compromise safety. A small portion of pay might be allocated towards efficiency, but safety on the operations level is basically the enemy of profit. Safety costs money.

DEFCON, Jazz enjoys a high level of experience because of the lack of mobility of labour in our industry and nothing else. Pilots with 10 yrs in are reluctant to move and start at the bottom at another, larger company that pays more. My contention was in relation to the future- aviation will be unable to attract "good" people, intelligent people, to pilot airplanes because the cat is now out of the bag, with regards to the working conditions in the industry. USA is merely at the leading edge of this worldwide phenomenon.

[apple]

Firstly, apple. Employee compensation tied to company performance is perfect for a sales organization. A pilot though, is essentially paid to say "no". No, it's not safe. No, we're not going now. No, we can't do that. Safety, it is said often, costs money. Pilots are there to spend that money, so in effect, we are an impediment to "performance" in the financial sense. Paying pilots for performance is, at it's basest level, little more than a bribe to compromise safety. A small portion of pay might be allocated towards efficiency, but safety on the operations level is basically the enemy of profit. Safety costs money.

DEFCON, Jazz enjoys a high level of experience because of the lack of mobility of labour in our industry and nothing else. Pilots with 10 yrs in are reluctant to move and start at the bottom at another, larger company that pays more. My contention was in relation to the future- aviation will be unable to attract "good" people, intelligent people, to pilot airplanes because the cat is now out of the bag, with regards to the working conditions in the industry. USA is merely at the leading edge of this worldwide phenomenon.

Not to put words in your mouth; but you seem to be saying a WestJet, Southwest, Ryan Air, or even a JetBlue Pilot essentially breaks the rules to 'make more'. I think most believe an accident would cost much more and furthermore, those pilots want to live to see their family again.

[Seeker]

Not to put words in your mouth; but you seem to be saying a WestJet, Southwest, Ryan Air, or even a JetBlue Pilot essentially breaks the rules to 'make more'. I think most believe an accident would cost much more and furthermore, those pilots want to live to see their family again.

I believe that the vast majority of these pilots have no problem staying on the right side of safe vs unsafe. Even though profit-sharing adds a layer to the decision-making process, the safety record of Westjet, Southwest etc is not significantly different from any non-profitsharing airline so it would be hard to show any casual link.

[Specs]

Many jobs in the construction industry are union shops. All electricians for example, on site, have to be IBEW members. Doesn't matter which job an individual electrician works, his/her pay will remain the same at at either site per the union scale. Training for apprentices, and all pensions are administered by the union. Sure sounds like a approach pilots and airlines would both benefit from. Salaries and Pensions are protected and new pilots all get paid / trained to the same min stds.

[Don Hudson]

My contention was in relation to the future- aviation will be unable to attract "good" people, intelligent people, to pilot airplanes because the cat is now out of the bag, with regards to the working conditions in the industry. USA is merely at the leading edge of this worldwide phenomenon.

The cat was out of the bag ten years ago when the earnest destruction of this profession began, the sole goal being the legitimation of the reduction of pilot wages, benefits and retirement arrangements. I began posting on this phenomenon in 2003 on this board but it bears stating and repeating often, that this industry has destroyed all incentive for young people to come into it.

We airline employees have been told in no uncertain terms, pilots especially, to "get used to the new way of doing business" and stop expecting decent wages and working conditions. Quite frankly, young people have indeed "got used to it" but not by putting up with such entreaties. Instead, they have taken a look at how their parents were treated and are not coming into aviation. As with the banking industry in the US, de-regulation has wreaked havoc in aviation as well and is finally being examined for what it is. Sully was right when he said to Congress about a year ago now, that "aviation is not attracting its best and brightest". The result of such testimony and the FAA's slowly-turning gaze towards pilot training, hiring, experience and the effects of a de-regulated environment upon aviaton are now, finally resulting in awareness and action. It is deja vu all over again - those who know are never listened to until the industry starts kicking tin, and asking why.

Certainly it will change but the original neoliberal march towards massive deregulation was ill-advised when it began in the late 70's. It will change because some are now even examining the accident rate as being connected with de-regulation. I think that requires more time to establish firmly, but some (including myself) are asking if at least a few of the six recent fatal accidents in the last two years involving the stalling of airliners are not connected with the forces unleashed in a de-regulated environment.

Many jobs in the construction industry are union shops. All electricians for example, on site, have to be IBEW members. Doesn't matter which job an individual electrician works, his/her pay will remain the same at at either site per the union scale. Training for apprentices, and all pensions are administered by the union. Sure sounds like a approach pilots and airlines would both benefit from. Salaries and Pensions are protected and new pilots all get paid / trained to the same min stds.

Specs;

Business, primarily in the US but also in Australia and Canada, (much less so in Europe) has spent billions over the last 80 years destroying such a system. Today, the "middle class employee/worker" no longer is a majority of the workforce. Wages, already at historical lows, have not increased for decades while corporate profits and senior executive "wages", (you can hardly call it wages), have skyrocketed. Taking a very black-and-white look back over the last decade at the larger trends in the political economy, whether the intended performance has translated for the shareholder is another question - de-regulating the economy, destroying unionism, gutting wages, dispensing with secure retirement options to name a few of the effects of a neoliberal economy was intended to produce profits for shareholders and concentrate power within corporate entities and business leaders but perhaps it hasn't worked out that way at least for the shareholder? One thing is certain: it has very definitely not worked out for the ordinary employee and now the stock market itself must be rescued on the backs of taxpayers because capitalists don't really have the cajones nor the integrity to play by their own rules.

I love our "boring" Canada.