preview

How to Improve Airline Safety and Pilot Training Essay

Good Essays

On February 12, 2009, a Colgan Airlines flight operating as Continental Connection Flight 3407 crashed two miles from the runway in Buffalo, New York, killing all fifty people aboard.. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigation that followed stunned the American public and identified the need to closely examine the regulations governing pilot training and pilot rest requirements, with a strong focus on regional airlines (Berard, 2010, 2). Currently, the United States government has passed HR 5900, which was titled the Airline Safety and Federal Aviation Administration Extension Act of 2010 and is now called Public Law 111-216 (Public Law 111-126, 2010, 3). The bill targets five focal points that will force the Federal …show more content…

The reason that this came about was the captain of the Colgan accident flight in Buffalo, New York had failed five checkrides in his life time. This would not normally be a big deal, but he failed his checkrides because he was not satisfactory in icing procedures…one of the major causes of the accident according to the NTSB.
Implementation of NTSB Flight Crewmember Training Recommendations The National Traffic Safety Board (NTSB) is an independent United States government investigative agency responsible for civil transportation accident investigation. The NTSB investigates all aviation accidents and incidents. On an annual basis, this bill requires that the FAA accepts all NTSB flight crewmember training recommendations that come up over the past year (Hughes, 2010). For example, the NTSB has requested that the FAA include flight in icing conditions into all flight training curriculums.
FAA Rulemaking on Training Programs Prior to this bill, the FAA had no say in what airlines included in their training programs as long as the program included certain subjects. No later than fourteen months after the date the bill is signed into law, the FAA will issue a final rule on all training programs (House Transportation Subcommittee, 2010). This was brought into effect because Colgan Airlines did not include flight into icing conditions in their flight

Get Access