Zoomie

Well, you are correct, but you misconstrue the facts.

You state the hours of both pilots at the time of the fatal crash.

I argue that working as an airline pilot is NOT the way we want our pilots to build experience.

At the time the FO was "hired", she would have been under-qualified for an ATP license because she didn't meet the 1500 hour requirement (1470 hours), thus she would have never been hired.

As for the CA, the report is vague, but from my interpretation of the report, he was a Gulfstream Academy guy with only 618 hours when he was hired by Colgan. Thus, he would have never been hired by Colgan if the ATP had been a requirement at the time he was hired (2005).

Some may argue that is a moot point since they both could have held an ATP license at the time of the incident, however I feel that our airline pilots need to build experience elsewhere before flying around tons of passengers.

aviatorhi

Might not be a 172, but it's called a Cessna XMC (no joke).



Also, as far as the rule goes I think it's a step in the right direction, personally I'd like to see there be an exception (possibly through OPSPECS) which would allow for certain 121 airlines (ie. Alaska, Caribbean, Pacific Islands) to employ pilots with less than 1500 hours, this should be limited to aircraft which seat 19 or less and IOE times should be extended as well as pairing restrictions put in place until they reach 1500. This would provide a barrier to entry against putting newbies into jets they are not ready for, but still allow them to build valuable time and experience in an aircraft. Also the rule itself should include the requirement that airlines get to choose what they are... are they airlines or are they training centers, what I mean by this is there should be language that would make running a PFT scheme impossible.

Corndawg88

A. I'm buying that Cessna first thing in the morning

B. Zoomie, I do agree 250 hour baby pilots should not be put in the right seat of regional jets to "build time/experience". However, you didn't provide a single valid arguement with regards to inexperience being the cause of Buffalo.... Please explain to me (IN DETAIL) how the 30 hrs between Shaw's hire date, and her ATP checkride, would had made a difference on the night Colgan 3407 crashed. Also please explain how the basic concept of stall recovery would have been better applied that night, if Renslow had his ATP prior to flying for Colgan.

jetpilot26

During the massive hiring and pilot shortages in the 60s, most MAJORS hired pilots with ZERO time. The airline hired the guy, said go get a commercial and instrument, when you are done you will start heavy metal class. Also, all the permanent F/Es on the props (former mechanics) were told the same, go get a commercial and instrument, and you will be upgraded, no longer being an F/E. This totaled 100s and 100s of guys with ZERO time suddenly flying 707s, 727s, DC-8s, etc.

While making a new 121 pilot have 1500 hours is not a bad thing, it is clearly a beaurocratic response to Buffalo!

JungleBus

First off, the practice of putting inexperienced pilots in airliners & having them drone around for 2 yrs before sliding to the right seat was NOT the cause of Colgan 3407. It may have been one of the contributing factors, of which there were many. What Colgan 3407 did was open the public's eyes to this and other unsafe practices at the regional airlines. I think it's pretty unfortunate that resulting legislation is being attacked because it might not have prevented that specific crash.

Secondly, CA Renslow had taken shortcuts his whole career. He paid to fly turbine equipment for Gulfstream, then hired on at one of the few 121 airlines that would take a 600 hr pilot at that time. He never did a lick of instructing. I would argue that had this rule been in place, there's a good chance he would have spent a year or two teaching stalls to primary students and occasionally taking the controls when one got out of hand. Would that experience have prevented him from pulling back at the stick shaker, or overriding the stickpusher with 60 to 120 pounds of force for the last 12 seconds of the flight? Hard to say for certain, but I think it'd be less likely.

forgot to bid

CFI's DO IT BEST

iPilot

I suppose the problem with the new "ATP" rule is a combination of political ambition and airline's propensity for legal manipulation.

The one true solution was to completely overhaul how pilots are trained and put into the seats of airliners. The Colgan crash was the result of the system's ability to stretch the training requirements to the limit to get butts in the seat. Gulfstream was built from the ground up to check the boxes the FAA has in place and get pilots into airliners as cheap and fast as possible. Many other places (some universities even) do the same thing. Sadly as training costs rise, the desire to do the bare minimum will become stronger and stronger.

But sadly that's a BIG problem to fix and I doubt Congress could work something like that out on their own. That's the realm of the FAA to work out but I think everyone knows how well that's going to work. So Congress needed to do something but had limited political resources to pull it off, hence the quick and dirty solution of requiring ATP mins to fly 121.

The airlines and school will have a hard time manipulating a hard and fast rule as requiring 1500 hours. Perhaps the worst they can do is keep the same training programs and then give students a 152 or something to put around in for the next 1300 hours in the pattern. However, I doubt anyone will sign up for that with what 152s are renting for these days.

So maybe this isn't perfect, in fact I'm pretty sure its almost the worst solution possible. But it's still a solution, and may just help us pilots out a little bit when it comes to getting some price control on our wages. And most of all, it will one way or another force the airlines to hire more qualified people to sit right seat.

FlyJSH

TRIST fund? That must have been in the REALLY GOOD old days

(I know, the spelling is tryst Tryst Synonyms, Tryst Antonyms | Thesaurus.com)

pagey

Gulfstream keeps getting mentioned in this thread but no one has brought up what's going to happen to them? This rule seems to effectively squash that program....are they gonna have to actually HIRE pilots instead of selling thier "services"?

flying around Florida in a 1900 and living in decent bases might not be all that bad....I'm sure the pay would be garbage.

3XLoser

Yes, there have been no-time pilots in the right seats of big jets, but they were being mentored by 10,000+ hour Captains in the left seat (who rarely stalled their airplanes while intercepting the glideslope). A beaurocratic road-block that would require an airline pilot to have an Airline Transport Pilot License (I know, strange) or at the very least be illegible for such a license, would be a collar to try to prevent companies like Colgan from hiring low-time and pay-to-play type pilots and then checking them out a year or two later. It might even provide some upward pressure to the industry wages.