A federal investigation into the deadly crash of a Colgan Air twin-engine turboprop near Buffalo, N.Y., this year is raising broad questions about the flight training and working conditions for pilots at regional airlines across the country.
A National Transportation Safety Board hearing Wednesday in Washington revealed that the pilot and co-pilot of the ill-fated plane were low-paid, had to commute hundreds of miles to work and probably were fatigued as they made the evening flight Feb. 12 from Newark, N.J.
On approaching Buffalo, the Bombardier Dash 8 Q400 went into a stall that the pilots were unable to correct. Fifty people died in the worst transportation accident in the United States in seven years.
The three days of hearings, which began Tuesday, are focusing on the practices of Colgan Air, which operated Continental Connection Flight 3407. NTSB officials said Tuesday that the captain, Marvin Renslow, had failed flight checks in the aircraft five times before he passed, and that he was unfamiliar with emergency procedures to prevent the aircraft from stalling.
Under questioning from the board Wednesday, Mary Finnigan, Colgan's vice president for administration, said the airline paid Rebecca Shaw, the co-pilot, $16,200 a year. The board disclosed that Shaw once supplemented her salary by with a second job in a coffee shop.
"The things from the hearing are so troubling -- the lack of training, the laissez-faire attitude in the cockpit and the airline officials screwing up," said Barry Sweedler, a former senior manager for the NTSB who is now a safety consultant based in Northern California. "I would think that the NTSB would come out with some recommendations before they are finished with the investigation."
Including the Buffalo accident, 135 people have been killed in five crashes involving regional airlines since 2002. NTSB officials looking into the crashes found pilot fatigue, high turnover rates among pilots and a pattern of sloppiness at the airlines.
Roger Cohen, executive director of the Regional Airline Assn., a national organization, said airlines were addressing the many safety, training and fatigue issues raised by the Buffalo crash. He added that the issues were important to major airlines as well.
Three-quarters of the nation's 640 airports are served only by regional airlines, of which there are 70 in the United States. About a quarter of the flights at Los Angeles International Airport are operated by commuter carriers, which typically fly turboprop planes or regional jets with 20 to 80 seats.
