Are Commuter Airlines/RJ's Safe??
Feb 19, 2003, 9:26 pm
#1
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Are Commuter Airlines/RJ's Safe??
Here's a perspective on this issue:
<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Team 4: Government Looks At Accidents, Pilots' Ages
A commuter jet crashes, killing everyone on board. The pilot is 25 years
old. Now, Team 4 has learned that young pilots in their 20s are more likely
to have accidents than pilots in any other age group.
Despite the numbers, you can expect to see more young pilots in the cockpit
in the next few years. One of the reasons is that young pilots come cheap,
with starting salaries as low as $20,000 a year -- about the same as
attendants in airport parking lots.
The following is Paul Van Osdol's investigative report, which first aired
Feb. 18, 2003, on WTAE Action News at 6 p.m.
The Jan. 8 crash of US Airways Express Flight 5481 killed all 21 people on
board. Crash investigators are focusing on maintenance and mechanical issues
but they are also looking into the experience of the pilots, including
25-year-old Captain Katie Leslie.
Despite Leslie's age, she had 1,800 hours flying the type of plane that
crashed. It's a typical level of experience.
But a Federal Aviation Administration (news - web sites) study obtained by
Team 4 shows that pilots in their 20s have, by far, the highest accident
rate:
89 percent higher than pilots in their 30s
59 percent greater than pilots in their 40s
62 percent higher than pilots in their 50s
Mary Schiavo, attorney: "When there's something going wrong with your
flight, experience matters."
Schiavo was inspector general for the FAA. Her biggest concern about younger
pilots is that they may be less likely to challenge older pilots or
controllers if they see something wrong.
Investigators say that helped cause the June 1999 crash of an American
Airlines jet in Little Rock, Ark. It killed 11 people and injured more than
100. The captain tried to land the plane in a severe thunderstorm and the
younger co-pilot failed to challenge him, even though he knew it was a
safety concern.
Schiavo: "Empowering the pilot to say no is probably one of the most
important things an airline can do to improve its safety. Frankly, there's a
question whether young people without clout, or worried about their jobs,
have that confidence to say no."
A spokesperson for commuter airlines, which employ most young pilots, says
they do have the ability to say no.
Debby McElroy, Regional Airline Association: "The key issue is training.
These individuals receive incredible training, very sophisticated training."
Young pilots we talked to agree. They say they have more than 1,000 hours in
the air by the time they go to work for an airline, so they see no reason
for passengers to get worried when they see young faces in the cockpit.
Justin Druzak, 21, is a licensed pilot. He's flying single-engine Cessnas,
but he expects to be flying with a commuter airline in the next six months.
Druzak: "I feel that age doesn't mean anything. I've had the proper training
anyone else would, and I actually started flying at age 11."
Druzak got his training at Pro Flight Center in Beaver County. Chief
instructor pilot Maureen Turkovich says Druzak and other students get plenty
of training, but she is not surprised by the study showing a higher accident
rate for young pilots.
Turkovich: "It does make sense in a certain respect that people try to take
shortcuts. In our program, we don't like to see that shortcut."
Doug Oetting, with 25 years of experience as a commercial pilot, says there
is no shortcut to experience, especially in times of crisis.
Oetting: "Smoke in the aircraft, that's a real pucker factor.
"I've never had an accident, thank goodness, but plenty of smaller incidents
and some major ones. I think that just having that behind me has given me a
wealth of wisdom in how to fly an aircraft and be safer."
Despite his experience, Oetting will be forced to stop flying in three years
when he hits the mandatory retirement age of 60. There is an effort to
change that rule because records show older pilots have a much safer record.</font>
A commuter jet crashes, killing everyone on board. The pilot is 25 years
old. Now, Team 4 has learned that young pilots in their 20s are more likely
to have accidents than pilots in any other age group.
Despite the numbers, you can expect to see more young pilots in the cockpit
in the next few years. One of the reasons is that young pilots come cheap,
with starting salaries as low as $20,000 a year -- about the same as
attendants in airport parking lots.
The following is Paul Van Osdol's investigative report, which first aired
Feb. 18, 2003, on WTAE Action News at 6 p.m.
The Jan. 8 crash of US Airways Express Flight 5481 killed all 21 people on
board. Crash investigators are focusing on maintenance and mechanical issues
but they are also looking into the experience of the pilots, including
25-year-old Captain Katie Leslie.
Despite Leslie's age, she had 1,800 hours flying the type of plane that
crashed. It's a typical level of experience.
But a Federal Aviation Administration (news - web sites) study obtained by
Team 4 shows that pilots in their 20s have, by far, the highest accident
rate:
89 percent higher than pilots in their 30s
59 percent greater than pilots in their 40s
62 percent higher than pilots in their 50s
Mary Schiavo, attorney: "When there's something going wrong with your
flight, experience matters."
Schiavo was inspector general for the FAA. Her biggest concern about younger
pilots is that they may be less likely to challenge older pilots or
controllers if they see something wrong.
Investigators say that helped cause the June 1999 crash of an American
Airlines jet in Little Rock, Ark. It killed 11 people and injured more than
100. The captain tried to land the plane in a severe thunderstorm and the
younger co-pilot failed to challenge him, even though he knew it was a
safety concern.
Schiavo: "Empowering the pilot to say no is probably one of the most
important things an airline can do to improve its safety. Frankly, there's a
question whether young people without clout, or worried about their jobs,
have that confidence to say no."
A spokesperson for commuter airlines, which employ most young pilots, says
they do have the ability to say no.
Debby McElroy, Regional Airline Association: "The key issue is training.
These individuals receive incredible training, very sophisticated training."
Young pilots we talked to agree. They say they have more than 1,000 hours in
the air by the time they go to work for an airline, so they see no reason
for passengers to get worried when they see young faces in the cockpit.
Justin Druzak, 21, is a licensed pilot. He's flying single-engine Cessnas,
but he expects to be flying with a commuter airline in the next six months.
Druzak: "I feel that age doesn't mean anything. I've had the proper training
anyone else would, and I actually started flying at age 11."
Druzak got his training at Pro Flight Center in Beaver County. Chief
instructor pilot Maureen Turkovich says Druzak and other students get plenty
of training, but she is not surprised by the study showing a higher accident
rate for young pilots.
Turkovich: "It does make sense in a certain respect that people try to take
shortcuts. In our program, we don't like to see that shortcut."
Doug Oetting, with 25 years of experience as a commercial pilot, says there
is no shortcut to experience, especially in times of crisis.
Oetting: "Smoke in the aircraft, that's a real pucker factor.
"I've never had an accident, thank goodness, but plenty of smaller incidents
and some major ones. I think that just having that behind me has given me a
wealth of wisdom in how to fly an aircraft and be safer."
Despite his experience, Oetting will be forced to stop flying in three years
when he hits the mandatory retirement age of 60. There is an effort to
change that rule because records show older pilots have a much safer record.</font>
Feb 20, 2003, 7:51 am
#2
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I get nervous when I see an old pilot flying a commuter. It always makes me wonder why this guy never moved up to a bigger plane and bigger money.
Feb 20, 2003, 10:37 am
#3
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<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by letiole:
I get nervous when I see an old pilot flying a commuter. It always makes me wonder why this guy never moved up to a bigger plane and bigger money.</font>
I get nervous when I see an old pilot flying a commuter. It always makes me wonder why this guy never moved up to a bigger plane and bigger money.</font>
It's usually because they had a career change along the way and consider themselves too old to start over at the bottom of a Major airline's seniority list.
In the past is was frequently due to some of the rediculous hiring requirements of the Major airlines. For example, prior to the mid 1990s, many Major airlines continued to require 20/20 uncorrected vision for new hires even though there is no such requirement for maintaining a medical and everyone needs glasses eventually. American used to have a two-day medical screening process that would eliminate a canditiate if anyone in his family had a history of cancer, heart problems, etc. even if the candidate showed no signs of any problem. For American you even had to send in a stool sample prior to the interview. (There used to be a joke that AA had to make sure that your '**** didn't stink')
At a regional airline like Horizon you'll have a lot of career pilots who stay there because that is were they want to live. I know two of them personally who were hired in the 20's but stay because they like being based in Portland. They're both Dash-8 Captains now earning descent money and both have small children so they aren't too anxious to lose that stability.
The problem with the aritcle quoted above is that it's using statistics without understanding the context. They are not separating out young AIRLINE pilots and comparing them to older AIRLINE pilots, they are comparing all young pilots to all older pilots. There is no information to suggest that young AIRLINE pilots have a higher accident rate than the rest of the industry.
[This message has been edited by LarryJ (edited 02-20-2003).]
Feb 20, 2003, 1:08 pm
#6
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<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2"> ... prior to the mid 1990s, many Major airlines continued to require 20/20 uncorrected vision ... </font>
Good point though on the older commuter pilots.
Feb 20, 2003, 1:54 pm
#7
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Younger pilots flying with a low salary are not compensated as little as it sounds.
They earn AMEL (aircraft multi-engine land) hours, PIC/SIC (pilot in command / second in command) hours, as well as training and type ratings for aircraft.
An ATP (airline transport pilot) at 25 years old is actually quite impressive. I believe that the minimum is 23 and you need to, at that age, already need to have your private certificate for ASEL (aircraft single engine land) flying and then work on your commercial, AMEL, etc.
If you've got 1000 hours (generally the minimum for an airline job) at 25 and you started flying at 17 (minimum to get your private), that's 125 hours of flying every year. Very impressive.
If a young ATP is flying as SIC with someone else as PIC, I'm not sure that they even have the right to make a decision if they don't think the PIC is making the correct call.
They earn AMEL (aircraft multi-engine land) hours, PIC/SIC (pilot in command / second in command) hours, as well as training and type ratings for aircraft.
An ATP (airline transport pilot) at 25 years old is actually quite impressive. I believe that the minimum is 23 and you need to, at that age, already need to have your private certificate for ASEL (aircraft single engine land) flying and then work on your commercial, AMEL, etc.
If you've got 1000 hours (generally the minimum for an airline job) at 25 and you started flying at 17 (minimum to get your private), that's 125 hours of flying every year. Very impressive.
If a young ATP is flying as SIC with someone else as PIC, I'm not sure that they even have the right to make a decision if they don't think the PIC is making the correct call.
Feb 20, 2003, 2:44 pm
#8
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I think the commuter airlines, even those regional jets are less safe. The pilots try to quit as soon as the majors hire them. One pilot for the majors that I spoke with thought that they weren't too bad (was probably being polite).
Feb 20, 2003, 4:22 pm
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<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by letiole:
You mean not all pilots paid a small fortune to have their eyeballs reshaped using whatever they called the method before LASIK so they could pass the vision test</font>
You mean not all pilots paid a small fortune to have their eyeballs reshaped using whatever they called the method before LASIK so they could pass the vision test</font>
RK wouldn't help as it is considered a correction itself so you're still not 20/20 uncorrected. It's also very easy to detect as the radial cuts are visible when look at the eye with that little flashlight/viewer thing that doctors use. Getting RK in the early 90s pretty much assured that you wouldn't get hired by a Major airline.
Feb 20, 2003, 4:26 pm
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<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by seat 50J:
I think the commuter airlines, even those regional jets are less safe. The pilots try to quit as soon as the majors hire them.</font>
I think the commuter airlines, even those regional jets are less safe. The pilots try to quit as soon as the majors hire them.</font>
The accident rates vary from year to year with the Major airlines coming out ahead some years and the Regional airlines coming out ahead other years. Over the long term there is no statistically significant difference between the two.
Where there is a difference is when you include the part 135 on-demand charter and air-taxi operations. They work in a different environment with less restrictive rules and even they do much better if you exclude those operations in Alaska.
[This message has been edited by LarryJ (edited 02-20-2003).]
Feb 20, 2003, 5:45 pm
#11
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LarryJ wrote:
No, it wasn't RK. What I'm talking about didn't involve cuts and was undetected. It was hard contact lenses that literally reshaped the cornea - somewhat like having braces on the teeth - and provided 20/20 vision at least temporarily or as long as you were willing to wear the lenses at night. Technically, yes your vision was corrected, but it also worked for passing the test.
Just looked up the name - orthokeratology.
For anyone interested in the smaller services LarryJ refers to, there's a good book by John Nance called "Blind Trust" that while somewhat out of date now gives you a general idea of the different regulations these services operate under.
[This message has been edited by letiole (edited 02-20-2003).]
<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">RK wouldn't help as it is considered a correction itself so you're still not 20/20 uncorrected. It's also very easy to detect as the radial cuts are visible when look at the eye with that little flashlight/viewer thing that doctors use. </font>
Just looked up the name - orthokeratology.
For anyone interested in the smaller services LarryJ refers to, there's a good book by John Nance called "Blind Trust" that while somewhat out of date now gives you a general idea of the different regulations these services operate under.
[This message has been edited by letiole (edited 02-20-2003).]
Feb 20, 2003, 10:34 pm
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<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by letiole:
orthokeratology</font>
orthokeratology</font>
Ortho-K works(ed) best for people who wanted improved, but not perfect, uncorrected vision during the periods each day that they didn't wear their lenses. i.e. when first getting up in the morning, while swimming, etc. Most Ortho-K patients would wear the lenses most of the day to provide 20/20 corrected vision and take them out at night.
(If you're wondering, my wife was in Opthamology before she quit working when we had children)
Feb 21, 2003, 7:15 am
#13
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Yeap, that's it. I guess my husband was a lucky one as it worked for him for longer than a couple of hours. As I recall, he'd have 20/20 for a couple of days. Like I said, it did allow him to pass the pilot physical for a commerical airline ... he switched to the FAA pretty quickly though.
Feb 21, 2003, 11:45 am
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I agree that the story seems to draw a simple conclusion about experience between the determining factor in crashes. It doesn't seem to be supported by the data they quote:
That suggests that the ranking is:
1. Pilots in their 20's are most risky
2. Pilots in their 40's
3. Pilots in their 50's
4. Pilots in their 30's are least risky
Pilot's in their 30's seem to be significantly safer than pilots in their 40's and 50's.
<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">But a Federal Aviation Administration (news - web sites) study obtained by
Team 4 shows that pilots in their 20s have, by far, the highest accident
rate:
89 percent higher than pilots in their 30s
59 percent greater than pilots in their 40s
62 percent higher than pilots in their 50s
Mary Schiavo, attorney: "When there's something going wrong with your
flight, experience matters." </font>
Team 4 shows that pilots in their 20s have, by far, the highest accident
rate:
89 percent higher than pilots in their 30s
59 percent greater than pilots in their 40s
62 percent higher than pilots in their 50s
Mary Schiavo, attorney: "When there's something going wrong with your
flight, experience matters." </font>
1. Pilots in their 20's are most risky
2. Pilots in their 40's
3. Pilots in their 50's
4. Pilots in their 30's are least risky
Pilot's in their 30's seem to be significantly safer than pilots in their 40's and 50's.
Feb 21, 2003, 12:07 pm
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<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by letiole:
Yeap, that's it. I guess my husband was a lucky one as it worked for him for longer than a couple of hours. As I recall, he'd have 20/20 for a couple of days.</font>
Yeap, that's it. I guess my husband was a lucky one as it worked for him for longer than a couple of hours. As I recall, he'd have 20/20 for a couple of days.</font>