Wall Street Article
Jan 27, 2009, 10:01 am
#1
Original Poster
Join Date: Dec 2006
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Wall Street Article
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USNews Now: Wall Street Journal Story Highlights Crew Training
Jan. 27, 2009
This morning’s edition of The Wall Street Journal spotlights the rigorous training crewmembers go through to prepare for emergency situations like the one encountered on Flight 1549. US Airways and its training curriculum are prominently featured, including two photographs of our crew training in action. We’ve attached a scanned copy of the article (also available on Wings and theHub) and provided the text below.
Crash Courses for the Crew
By Scott McCartney
Though showered with world-wide praise and treated to a hero’s hometown welcome, Capt. Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger offered a businesslike account of the swift and dazzling actions that saved the 155 people aboard US Airways Flight 1549.
“I know I can speak for the entire crew when I tell you we were simply doing the job we were trained to do,” he said Saturday in Danville, Calif.
Indeed, it wasn’t the first time the US Airways pilots had confronted double-engine failure or prepared for a ditching. Nor was it the first time that flight attendants had thrown open emergency doors, inflated rafts and herded passengers out of an Airbus cabin in seconds.
But it was the first time they had done all that when actual lives were at stake. Their previous experiences were all part of the rigorous training pilots and flight attendants undergo.
In emergencies, airplane crews typically revert to their training, aviation experts say, and a close look at the training at US Airways Group Inc. and other airlines shows how well-prepared the experienced crew of Flight 1549 was for their crash into the Hudson River on Jan. 15.
Air-crew training has grown far more sophisticated with the use of simulators for the cockpit and the cabin and research into past accidents that has revealed mistakes that cost lives and strategies that save lives. Universities and government agencies like the Federal Aviation Administration’s Civil Aerospace Medical Institute study crash survivability, from evacuation patterns to the ideal size of exit rows and doors to the best techniques for using seat cushions for flotation. (Survivors should cluster together and hold each other with cushions wedged between them, for example.)
Much of the research has led to stronger seats on airplanes and interior panels and overhead bins that are slower to burn, plus fine-tuning of flight attendant procedures like shouting orders to passengers repetitively. Researchers have also learned that the composition of passengers matters. A 1984 fiery evacuation of a Pacific Western 737 in Calgary, Canada, had no fatalities partly because 75% of passengers were frequent fliers who knew the plane and the exits. A year later in a similar fiery evacuation of a British Airtours charter carrying vacationers to Greece from Manchester, England, 55 of 137 people on board died because panicky passengers produced gridlock.
At US Airways, the annual training that each flight attendant gets has shifted in recent years from classroom teaching to more hands-on practice evacuations in full-size Airbus cabin simulators because research has shown the importance of practice drills. “Now over 80% of the day is in simulators evacuating aircraft, with very little time spent in the classroom,” says Bob Hemphill, the airline’s director of in-flight training.
US Airways gives newly hired flight attendants five weeks of training, from an introduction to the aviation industry to procedures for opening each type of door on each type of aircraft they’ll fly. The airline has a full-size Airbus cabin simulator in both its Phoenix and Charlotte training facilities, plus “door trainers” for its Boeing airplanes, so flight attendants can practice opening emergency exits under tough conditions (total darkness, billowing smoke) and evacuating cabins. In both cities, initial training includes jumping into a pool and practicing opening a life raft, helping people in and out of the raft, putting up the canopy and using the raft’s sea anchor and medical kit.
Water drills aren’t required under federal law, but a few airlines do them when flight attendants are first hired, says Chris Witkowski, air-safety director at the Association of Flight Attendants, the profession’s largest union.
After the initial training, federal law requires annual classroom safety training for flight attendants and hands-on performance drills every 24 months. Three days before the crash of Flight 1549, the FAA proposed increasing that requirement to hands-on drills every 12 months.
US Airways has flight attendants undergo two days of recurrent training every year – one day of home study and one day at the training center to practice emergency procedures and measure proficiency. That includes opening doors after first checking for fire, water or debris, pulling a handle to inflate evacuation slides if they don’t automatically inflate, dealing with disruptive or slow-moving passengers and knowing how to climb over seats to get to window exits if necessary.
“There is a standard of physical performance you must maintain,” Mr. Hemphill says.
Part of the training includes working emergency scenarios in the classroom with pilots so the entire crew has experience coordinating and communicating. Pilots return to the training facilities once a year to practice cockpit skills in full-motion flight simulators that have hundreds of scenarios and can recreate the sounds and sensations of flight, creating emergencies so realistic that pilots emerge with “sweat rings around the collar,” says Robert Skinner, managing director of flight training and standards at US Airways.
US Airways’ curriculum includes a scenario where both engines are lost, but at high altitude, and it typically ends with one engine restarting, Capt. Skinner said. Pilots can’t practice water ditching or even off-airport landings in the simulator – once the airplane hits the ground the system shuts down and has to go through a lengthy reset. Forced landings and water ditching are taught in the classroom, however.
Private aviation training companies offer similar courses for corporate pilots and flight attendants, and contract with some small airlines to train flight attendants.
British Airways PLC goes a step further, offering an emergency-procedures course to its corporate customers for staff who travel frequently or fear flying. A British Airways spokesman in London says the course is “quite well subscribed.” The half-day program includes an emergency landing and smoke-filled evacuation from a Boeing 737 full-motion cabin simulator, plus jumping down an Airbus A320 evacuation slide, and costs £130 (about $180) per person.
Because of federal guidelines and survival research, emergency procedures at different U.S. airlines are all quite similar, Mr. Witkowski says.
Here’s what passengers can expect:
In the event of a forced landing, flight attendants run through their checklists if they have time, secure equipment and brief passengers on brace position – burying your head between your knees in an airplane seat. They’ll also consult exit-row passengers to make sure they are what flight attendants call “ABPs” – able-bodied passengers. If not, passengers get reseated and ABPs are stationed at over-wing doors.
As impact nears, flight attendants yell instructions in unison. Research into the psychology of how passengers respond to emergencies has shown that people look to flight attendants for leadership and respond well to loud audible directions.
US Airways uses a chant of, “Bend Over! Heads Down! Stay Down!” says Mr. Hemphill.
Mr. Hemphill believes honing emergency skills year after year pays off. The three flight attendants on Flight 1549 – Doreen Welsh, Sheila Dail and Donna Dent – had 90 years of collective experience and at least 26 years of flying for each, dating back to both Piedmont and Allegheny airlines, two carriers folded into the current US Airways.
Within seconds of hitting the water, two flight attendants opened the front doors of the plane – one had to manually pull a lever to inflate the slide that doubles as a life raft, according to the National Transportation Safety Board. As the tail of the plane sank lower in the water, the third flight attendant, sitting in the rear, decided not to open a door after seeing water rising outside. She moved passengers forward to over-wing exits.
For flight attendants, “their training and years of experience develops an automatic instinct,” said Mr. Hemphill. When debriefing crews after emergencies, time after time they say, “When the chips were down, my training kicked in.”
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USNews Now: Wall Street Journal Story Highlights Crew Training
Jan. 27, 2009
This morning’s edition of The Wall Street Journal spotlights the rigorous training crewmembers go through to prepare for emergency situations like the one encountered on Flight 1549. US Airways and its training curriculum are prominently featured, including two photographs of our crew training in action. We’ve attached a scanned copy of the article (also available on Wings and theHub) and provided the text below.
Crash Courses for the Crew
By Scott McCartney
Though showered with world-wide praise and treated to a hero’s hometown welcome, Capt. Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger offered a businesslike account of the swift and dazzling actions that saved the 155 people aboard US Airways Flight 1549.
“I know I can speak for the entire crew when I tell you we were simply doing the job we were trained to do,” he said Saturday in Danville, Calif.
Indeed, it wasn’t the first time the US Airways pilots had confronted double-engine failure or prepared for a ditching. Nor was it the first time that flight attendants had thrown open emergency doors, inflated rafts and herded passengers out of an Airbus cabin in seconds.
But it was the first time they had done all that when actual lives were at stake. Their previous experiences were all part of the rigorous training pilots and flight attendants undergo.
In emergencies, airplane crews typically revert to their training, aviation experts say, and a close look at the training at US Airways Group Inc. and other airlines shows how well-prepared the experienced crew of Flight 1549 was for their crash into the Hudson River on Jan. 15.
Air-crew training has grown far more sophisticated with the use of simulators for the cockpit and the cabin and research into past accidents that has revealed mistakes that cost lives and strategies that save lives. Universities and government agencies like the Federal Aviation Administration’s Civil Aerospace Medical Institute study crash survivability, from evacuation patterns to the ideal size of exit rows and doors to the best techniques for using seat cushions for flotation. (Survivors should cluster together and hold each other with cushions wedged between them, for example.)
Much of the research has led to stronger seats on airplanes and interior panels and overhead bins that are slower to burn, plus fine-tuning of flight attendant procedures like shouting orders to passengers repetitively. Researchers have also learned that the composition of passengers matters. A 1984 fiery evacuation of a Pacific Western 737 in Calgary, Canada, had no fatalities partly because 75% of passengers were frequent fliers who knew the plane and the exits. A year later in a similar fiery evacuation of a British Airtours charter carrying vacationers to Greece from Manchester, England, 55 of 137 people on board died because panicky passengers produced gridlock.
At US Airways, the annual training that each flight attendant gets has shifted in recent years from classroom teaching to more hands-on practice evacuations in full-size Airbus cabin simulators because research has shown the importance of practice drills. “Now over 80% of the day is in simulators evacuating aircraft, with very little time spent in the classroom,” says Bob Hemphill, the airline’s director of in-flight training.
US Airways gives newly hired flight attendants five weeks of training, from an introduction to the aviation industry to procedures for opening each type of door on each type of aircraft they’ll fly. The airline has a full-size Airbus cabin simulator in both its Phoenix and Charlotte training facilities, plus “door trainers” for its Boeing airplanes, so flight attendants can practice opening emergency exits under tough conditions (total darkness, billowing smoke) and evacuating cabins. In both cities, initial training includes jumping into a pool and practicing opening a life raft, helping people in and out of the raft, putting up the canopy and using the raft’s sea anchor and medical kit.
Water drills aren’t required under federal law, but a few airlines do them when flight attendants are first hired, says Chris Witkowski, air-safety director at the Association of Flight Attendants, the profession’s largest union.
After the initial training, federal law requires annual classroom safety training for flight attendants and hands-on performance drills every 24 months. Three days before the crash of Flight 1549, the FAA proposed increasing that requirement to hands-on drills every 12 months.
US Airways has flight attendants undergo two days of recurrent training every year – one day of home study and one day at the training center to practice emergency procedures and measure proficiency. That includes opening doors after first checking for fire, water or debris, pulling a handle to inflate evacuation slides if they don’t automatically inflate, dealing with disruptive or slow-moving passengers and knowing how to climb over seats to get to window exits if necessary.
“There is a standard of physical performance you must maintain,” Mr. Hemphill says.
Part of the training includes working emergency scenarios in the classroom with pilots so the entire crew has experience coordinating and communicating. Pilots return to the training facilities once a year to practice cockpit skills in full-motion flight simulators that have hundreds of scenarios and can recreate the sounds and sensations of flight, creating emergencies so realistic that pilots emerge with “sweat rings around the collar,” says Robert Skinner, managing director of flight training and standards at US Airways.
US Airways’ curriculum includes a scenario where both engines are lost, but at high altitude, and it typically ends with one engine restarting, Capt. Skinner said. Pilots can’t practice water ditching or even off-airport landings in the simulator – once the airplane hits the ground the system shuts down and has to go through a lengthy reset. Forced landings and water ditching are taught in the classroom, however.
Private aviation training companies offer similar courses for corporate pilots and flight attendants, and contract with some small airlines to train flight attendants.
British Airways PLC goes a step further, offering an emergency-procedures course to its corporate customers for staff who travel frequently or fear flying. A British Airways spokesman in London says the course is “quite well subscribed.” The half-day program includes an emergency landing and smoke-filled evacuation from a Boeing 737 full-motion cabin simulator, plus jumping down an Airbus A320 evacuation slide, and costs £130 (about $180) per person.
Because of federal guidelines and survival research, emergency procedures at different U.S. airlines are all quite similar, Mr. Witkowski says.
Here’s what passengers can expect:
In the event of a forced landing, flight attendants run through their checklists if they have time, secure equipment and brief passengers on brace position – burying your head between your knees in an airplane seat. They’ll also consult exit-row passengers to make sure they are what flight attendants call “ABPs” – able-bodied passengers. If not, passengers get reseated and ABPs are stationed at over-wing doors.
As impact nears, flight attendants yell instructions in unison. Research into the psychology of how passengers respond to emergencies has shown that people look to flight attendants for leadership and respond well to loud audible directions.
US Airways uses a chant of, “Bend Over! Heads Down! Stay Down!” says Mr. Hemphill.
Mr. Hemphill believes honing emergency skills year after year pays off. The three flight attendants on Flight 1549 – Doreen Welsh, Sheila Dail and Donna Dent – had 90 years of collective experience and at least 26 years of flying for each, dating back to both Piedmont and Allegheny airlines, two carriers folded into the current US Airways.
Within seconds of hitting the water, two flight attendants opened the front doors of the plane – one had to manually pull a lever to inflate the slide that doubles as a life raft, according to the National Transportation Safety Board. As the tail of the plane sank lower in the water, the third flight attendant, sitting in the rear, decided not to open a door after seeing water rising outside. She moved passengers forward to over-wing exits.
For flight attendants, “their training and years of experience develops an automatic instinct,” said Mr. Hemphill. When debriefing crews after emergencies, time after time they say, “When the chips were down, my training kicked in.”
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Please post for those without access to company email.
Jan 27, 2009, 11:39 am
#2
Moderator: New York City and FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Sep 2007
Programs: AA PLT, Natl EC
Posts: 10,855
Thanks for posting!
What's the trick? 
US Airways has flight attendants undergo two days of recurrent training every year – one day of home study and one day at the training center to practice emergency procedures and measure proficiency. That includes opening doors after first checking for fire, water or debris, pulling a handle to inflate evacuation slides if they don’t automatically inflate, dealing with disruptive or slow-moving passengers and knowing how to climb over seats to get to window exits if necessary.
Jan 27, 2009, 11:50 am
#3
Original Poster
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: The views I express here are not necessarily supported by any airline or codeshare partners, nor do I represent their views and/or opinions. They are my own OPINIONS dont like them dont read them.....
Posts: 1,615
Jan 27, 2009, 1:15 pm
#4
Join Date: Apr 2006
Location: High Point, NC
Programs: None
Posts: 9,171
As flight62 says, fear of dying is a great motivator. However, many people will line up in the aisles in an evacuation - that's how they're used to getting off an airplane. So the "trick" is mostly thinking to climb over the seat backs instead of joining the line in the aisle. Especially if, unlike 1549, risk of death is high if you don't get out fast.
Jim
Jim
Jan 27, 2009, 3:40 pm
#5
Moderator: New York City and FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Sep 2007
Programs: AA PLT, Natl EC
Posts: 10,855
As flight62 says, fear of dying is a great motivator. However, many people will line up in the aisles in an evacuation - that's how they're used to getting off an airplane. So the "trick" is mostly thinking to climb over the seat backs instead of joining the line in the aisle. Especially if, unlike 1549, risk of death is high if you don't get out fast.
Jim
Jim