the subcommittee will come to order the chair will ask all members staff and everyone to turn electronic devices off or on vibrate the subcommittee is meeting today to hear testimony regarding the f a a call to action on airline safety and pilot training i will give a brief opening statement and then call on the ranking member mr p dry for his opening statement or any remarks that he may have and then we will attempt to go directly to to our witnesses i welcome everyone to the aviation subcommittee hearing on the federal aviation administration called action on airline safety and pilot training i think it's important that as we discuss airline safety and improving pilot training standards that we remember one of the important reasons why we are here today on february twelfth two thousand and nine colgan air doing business as continental connection flight thirty four o seven crashed in route to buffalo niagara international airport all forty five passengers and the four crew members died as well as one person on the ground mr  madeleine was a passenger on flight thirty four zero seven i'm pleased he is here again with us joining us today to offer his testimony and the subcommittee extends our sincere condolences to you as well as other family members and friends who lost loved ones in this tragic accident while the n t s b continues to investigate the cause of the three day public hearing on the accident clearly identified the need to closely examine the regulations governing pilot training and rest requirements and the oversight necessary to ensure their compliance with a particular focus on regional airlines at the outset i would like to commend you and ministry of babbitt for your leadership and your quick response to the safety issues you acknowledged early on that the practices in the regional airline industry are not acceptable and you acted soon after our subcommittee hearing on june eleventh the airline safety and pilot training called action was announced to help us gather information from the airlines and labor organizations to determine industry best practices and seek voluntary compliance with a number of safety safety initiatives i believe that the call t action has helped focus the regional air carrier safety discussion in the aviation community in congress and with the public today's hearing is the first of many oversight hearings on the status of the f a a scald action over the past several months the f a a held twelve regional safety forums around the country i understand that all were well attended while there are positive indicators that the f a a and the stakeholders have made progress there is also a lot that we do not know about the results of these efforts one of the reasons we have drawn an incomplete data is because the f a a did not impose or suggest firm deadlines for labor or industry to complete the recommended recommended action items on june twenty fourth administrator babbitt wrote one hundred five airlines and eight unions asking for commitments to specific action items three months later less than half have responded to your request as a result we only have regarding what specifically these are going to say sions have committed to do a response of less than fifty percent to the f a a is exactly why we cannot rely on voluntary compliance i don't believe at this point you mr nor the airline industry or the labor groups can tell us with any degree of confidence what the substance of the voluntary commitments are that is why congress must enact comprehensive safety legislation that will increase safety across the board i know that we are expecting a more comprehensive report from the f a a on what progress that you have made some time in december by the end of the year and the subcommittee will convene another hearing to review what the f a a has proposed in order to measure your progress meanwhile we intend to uphold our commitment to the families of flight thirty four zero seven and the american public this subcommittee will continue aggressive oversight to strengthen airline safety and pilot training qualification standards congress has the ability to improve aviation safety standards and that is exactly why we what we intend to do with h r thirty three seventy one as you will recall after the june eleven regional air carriers and pilot workforce issues chairman oberstar ranking member mike mr p try and i made a commitment that we would work together to address many of the safety issues that were raised in the hearing based upon the input we were sieved which included ideas from members of congress and additional meetings with the f a a the pilots unions the airlines and others in the aviation community we introduced bipartisan legislation h r thirty three seventy one in july we had a specific goal in mind to raise the bar on the minimum level of safety to ensure there is one level of safety across the industry to address pilot qualifications the bill increases the minimum flight hours required to be hired as an airline pilot there is a consensus among pilots and many in the aviation community that two hundred fifty flight hours is simply not enough and that the safety that safety would be improved by raising the standards thirty three seventy one perspective airline pilots would be required to obtain an airline transport pilot license which is currently needed to be an airline captain it requires a minimum of fifteen hundred flight hours our goal is to ensure that both the first officer in the captain have the same minimum level of experience training and skills to transport passengers and crew safely the a t p license is also requires additional aeronautical knowledge crew resource management training and greater flight proficiency testing some in the aviation community have expressed concerns with the provisions to require an eight a t p license i think administrator babbitt had it right in his speech to the airline pilots association association and i quote to you mr babbitt in that speech if you think the safety bar is set too high then your standards are set too low our bill is a comprehensive effort to consolidate what we know industry wide about aviation safety to improve safety performance going forward that is why the call the action is so important from the airlines we need to know if they are using  asap they are working in partnership with their regional partners on specific and concrete ways to ensure the regional airlines adopt and implement the most effective safety practices from the pilots we need to know if they stablished published a code of ethics to set expectations for professional behavior or have professional standards and an ethics committee this is all valuable information and data that we need in order to evaluate pilot training and qualification programs before i recognize mr p try for his opening statement i would ask unanimous consent to allow two weeks for all members to revise and extend their remarks and permit submission of additional statements and materials by members  carrier safety well as we all know statistically u s commercial aviation accidents remind us that there are improvements that still may be made and that there are lessons to be learned from these tragic losses with today's hearing we continue our focus on the common goal of improving that safety record even further as the families of the victims of flight three hundred seven remind us we can and must do everything in our power to ensure that what happened on the day they lost their loved ones must never happen again i believe we're all committed to that shared goal the aftermath of the tragic loss of continental flight thirty seven on february a a on a call to action on air carrier safety and i'd like to join in thanking the administrator for that effort and for joining us this morning and look forward to hearing is an update on the progress of the wide ranging welcome back appreciate you and the other family members insights and contributions to the question of how to best improve aviation safety your efforts here on capitol hill have been very helpful in three of five recent fatal regional air carrier accidents the national transportation safety board cited pilot performance as a potential contributory factor in flight thirty seven pilot performance played a role ranking member and now will recognize and introduce the witnesses the first witness that will be testifying the honorable randy babbitt who's the administrator for the federal aviation and loved ones are in the audience here today at this hearing captain john prater who is the president of the airline pilots association international mr roger cohen who's president of the regional airline association mr james made who's the president c e o of the air transport association dr tim brady who's past president of aviation accreditations board international mr jeffrey skiles vice president coalition of airline pilots association  gentlemen i would ask you we have a five minute rule i would ask you to summarize your statements we have plenty of time for questions and then a discussion about many of these issues  renewed and robust safety discourse within the aviation community history has shown that we can implement safety improvements far more quickly and effectively when we work together to identify the problems and develop solutions we've received a wealth of information from the call to action and we're committed to using it to make the industry and the traveling public safer to summarize our efforts here as part of the called action and a letter to all part one twenty one operators and their unions requesting written commitments to adhere to the highest professional standards while this discourse was beginning my letter also sought specific comments on several key topics including pilot records establishment of programs to monitor safety of flight operations and safety and the development of professional standards and ethics committee by labor organizations i can tell you that the responses that we received have had an overwhelming willingness  to make these commitments and while we haven't heard from everyone at this point as i told them and members of this committee i will use my bully pulpit going forward to gain their cooperation and so i am prepared to make those who are  responsive known to the public by the end of september we also have prioritized the creation of new flight rules based on science as part of our called action an aviation rule making committee charged with making recommendations began meeting in july and completed its work by our september first deadline that we set i'm extremely pleased that our committee acted quickly and reached consensus on a broad philosophical framework  addressing this critical subject our experts are now reviewing the recommendations and we have an aggressive timeline for completing the n p r m and we're on track for it recognizing the urgency of proposals in the called action we also directed our inspectors to do a focused review of air carrier crew member training qualification and management oversight be accelerated program at its first deadline on july fifteenth and is on track to meet the final deadline set for the end of september we're also moving forward aggressively with our proposed changes to the airline safety and pilot training we have received over three thousand pages of comments to this proposed rule and we're rivera reviewing those carefully and anticipate that we'll continue to meet our deadlines on this project and although the leadership and guidance is critical to safety the most effective safety culture is not one that is merely imposed by orders and notices from washington no it's the one that encourages buying and participation from the entire aviation community and so we took our show on the road if you would holding twelve regional forums across the country during the months of july and august and these forums allowed the f a a to discuss the call to action and all the initiatives associated with it the opportunity was there for us to receive stakeholder feedback to engage with aviation professionals and to seek new ideas to improve industry safety all of these mean equally important in addition to hard work we've also applied a dose of common sense to this call to action as we work through our plan we realize that some of our deadlines might actually short change our results our original intent was to develop guidance materials for conducting comprehensive training reviews by july thirty first but we realize that this deadline actually predated the completion of our focused inspection initiative and the conclusion of our regional safety forums with that in mind we realize that we ought to take those two sources of information into account before putting forth any recommendations and also recognizing that our commitment to safety can only be served by prioritizing quality results over a rigid timeline so that in mind i extended the july thirty first deadline to december thirty first this will give our team time to analyze and incorporate the valuable input that we receive and continue to receive from the aviation community while i'm pleased to discuss the important steps that we have and will be taking i believe we should also acknowledge the biggest factor affecting aviation safety professionalism in the workplace no amount of safety procedures rules or task forces can replace the central role that individual professionalism plays in keeping the skies safe whether one has a wrench in his hand or her hand or set city yoker carries a clipboard or wears a head works in the galley doesn't make any difference safety is everyone's responsibility and all oh professionalism prevails in the majority of the workforce and throughout the industry the standards are the same the training is the same but unfortunately the mentality is not the same and this is what we need to change we must develop a culture where the hand of experience guides and mentors the and experienced members of our community we must find a way to nurture a culture where individuals know they can speak up about weaknesses in the system without punishment we must create a culture where professionalism and individual accountability it demands is both a job requirement and a point of pride despite the work that i'd like to thank you for inviting me to speak today before your committee i'm here today representing not only my immediate family but also my new family the families of continental flight thirty four my twenty four year old daughter  onboard thirty four o seven that winter night outside buffalo she along with forty nine others and an unborn baby perished february this past august twenty eighth my family gathered at my daughter's grave in the pouring  to accomplish today also painful human side of this accident fresh in the minds of the important people both in our government and the aviation industry i have included at the end of my testimony twenty three statements that have been submitted by family members of our group letting you know the pain and sadness that we still struggle with on a daily basis over seven months later i would like to share one from who lost her  sister he was instrumental in getting her admission into india in the metals medical school after graduation how we miss sharing the joy back when some are passed the first first year of medical school in a new environment visualize his smile when he talks with pride about his sister natasha it is all gone forever if i only knew now that i would never see here if i knew that i would never see hear or feel all this if i just know that he would was just given to me for only twenty eight years i would never have let him out of my sight for a second wish i could hear him just one more time so i could tell him one more time i love you of ongoing developments and most importantly not waiting to the n t s b final report to move forward on the quest to make critical improvements to our aviation system we have a simple message for the f a a as a former pilot when i look at the initial details in the call action address three critical areas training and an increased emphasis investment and safety at the regional airline level clearly our action revealed deficiency in both stall recovery and cold weather training in the a we came across quite a few negative comments from the industry for me they echo the all too familiar complaints of the changes being too great of an economic burden and a complacent attitude what we are currently doing a sufficient that mindset is exactly what got us into this protective predicament that we find ourselves in today at the same time the f a a is moving forward on rule making that would lead to a revised flight duty regulations which former pow select myself  administrator babbitt can testify are long overdue this would be an enormous strides towards making airline travel safe one area that our group would like to see kept in the spotlight is a problem problematic area of commuting with pilots flying cross country to report for duty we cannot continue to look the other way and pretend that we do not have issues associated with commuting to be not to be addressed so in terms of eliminating deficiencies related to training and fatigue our challenges administrator babbitt and the f a a to stand up to the industry to stick up for our loved ones and the flying public and see that these new regulations through to an accident in the course of the next year next i want to touch on the f a s offer to identify industry best practices and secure voluntary commitments from all part one twenty one carriers to implement them what it really speaks to is the inconsistency of how regional carriers approach training safety in all phases of their operations when i flew when it  came to best practices in terms of safety and training what was good enough for continental was good enough for connell express sadly our action reveals that this is no longer the case instead we watched as continental does everything to lay the blame for the shortcomings at col n and at the feet of the f a a for its lack of oversight instead of looking to shift the blame we feel that everyone needs to come together to accept responsibility from the regional carriers to the major carriers to the pilots union c to figure out what went wrong and work together to fix it if parent carriers take responsibility for the regional partners will allow for safer operations and that is what should happen so for the regional airlines it all comes down to invent investing in safety and in your pilots and doing everything you can to set them up for success there should be no corner cutting when it comes to writing the very best training and the most state of the art safety management tools as yet and yet  as we look at the operations of colgan this is exactly what was allowed to happen the f a a has gotten the ball rolling in many of these areas with recent summit and regional safety forms but i know i know too well from my time in the industry that voluntary commitment to best practices now can certainly go quickly quickly in the future if the economics change with mr babbitt is not the home of the f a a to keep the industry honest and so this is where we need you our representatives in congress to come in and mandate some of these changes there are numerous important initiatives that been put forth by the both the house and the senate for consideration with the f a a reauthorization but i would like to spotlight three that we must consider must h first we must move forward with a comprehensive pilot training record database for use in the hiring process process let us never have another accident where the kerry has the excuse that they did not know everything there was to know about the pilot when they hired him or her secondly we need to lock in mandatory safety management programs asap with the with privacy protections that the pilots are asking for we cannot leave the regional carriers with any temptation to save money at the expense of safety which we've learned we saw in the case of colgan and lastly we need to achieve one of the key provisions put forth in the subcommittees recent introduced legislation namely that all commercial pilots must have an a t p rating with this with the requirement of fifteen hundred hours prior to being hired hired to fly commercially the demographics of the pilot workforce has changed moving towards a younger more inexperienced pilot while the technology has gotten more advanced when i was hired by connell express i had an a t p and five thousand hours flight time and the captains with whom i flew with had twice as much time as me as i said in my previous testimony before this committee there is no substitute for experience in the air as a veteran of the industry know that this provision will require entry level possible to positional hours by flight instructing cargo hauling and crop dusting before they can come to hired commercially many years ago that's exactly the route i took and all those experiences made me a better pilot when i got to continental express express and had human lives in my hands so we asked a regional major carriers a pilot unions and flight training schools to support this initiative that means a lot to our group in conclusion i would like to i would like all the key players in this room to look at the families here with me today the mehlis them our cars or parries the tolls and the petty and all the other families who are not able to come to washington but are here with us anyway for us what matters is not a well crafted publicly relations strategy while our action is still fresh in the spotlight well matters to us as implementation and follow through when it comes to the  prevent another thirty four you may recall that alpha testified before this committee on june eleventh at that time we describe reality that is set the stage for many of the safety issues we are discussing  code share parcher agreements mean that mainline carriers exert enormous pressure on a regional airlines to provide their flight operations as cheaply as possible what many airlines do to win this race to the bottom they replace experienced pilots with low experienced pilots who fly for low paying operators marketed under the mainline brand they consider short staffing to be standard practice and pilot pushing is the result fewer pilots flying more days compromises safety with the industry's intense focus on the lowest possible operating costs and the practice of airlines outsourcing their routes to the lowest bidder i'd like to review our observations following the f a s twelve called action meetings i led a dozen alpha representatives to the f a s industry summit on june fifteenth and served as the pilot moderator at the first call to action and participated in the event in st louis alpha provided pilot moderators at six of the meetings and nearly seventy of our pilots participated in those twelve events i'd like to offer examples of alpha's actions that illustrate our union's commitment to assist the industry and the f a a in recognizing the serious safety issues raised during the call to action help us code of ethics adopted in one nine hundred fifty six provide standards of conduct for airline pilots i have directed the leaders of our thirty six pilot groups to work with their management to do even more to incorporate our code of ethics into initial and recurrent pilot training nearly all alpha represented pilot groups have professional standards committees charged with maintaining the highest degree of professional conduct where management support them professional standards committees enhanced safety unfortunately we continue to see managements that refuse to allow their pilots to participate in alpha professional standards and safety efforts today help is releasing a new white paper on pilot candidate screening hiring training and mentoring we've asked our fifty thousand members to dissipate in building those standards our union is also creating a professional development committee to enhance our work with the aviation community the colleges the universities to foster professionalism in new pilots on a related issue nearly all of the airlines have an ace that program and about half have a focal program alpa has worked to help airlines establish these critical initiatives to detect and resolve safety issues before accidents occur sadly we continue to encounter managements and sometimes even f a a inspectors who remain convinced that the way to deal with safety issues is to punish employees for their mistakes i've said it before i'll say it again and focal programs will fail if they are used as discipline it measures rather than is intended to advance safety based on our extensive participation in the call to action meetings we believe that they identified some of the best and certainly some of the worst practices in our industry but what is yet changed the action we believe to be absolutely essential from the regulated parties and the agency was noticeably absent clearly the voluntary programs that are working need to be supported many of the bath best practices must be mandated and the worst practices must be eliminated through regulatory our legislative action for just one example look to recent news headlines exposing onerous sickleave and fatigue policies at some of our regional airlines despite the hearings earlier this year substantiating disagree just behavior our members continue to present evidence that some of these companies haven't changed they continue to punish pilots who to fly in fact approximately one third of the pilots at one airline are reprimanded for sick leave or fatigue related absences annually th shocking number illustrates the flaws in the staffing and scheduling practices at too many airlines and demonstrates the urgent need to update the regulations that continue to allow these unsafe practices to exist mainline management often refuses to intervene despite the fact that these other airlines carry their passengers the management at the name brand airlines that sell the tickets to the traveling public and should be held responsible refused to intervene saying that these vendor airlines meet f a a standards as part of my commitment to the administrators called i'm reaching out to every c e o of mainline and regional airlines where we represent the pilots to ask if each will work with alpha to address the safety issues raised by the call to action safety requires the investment of both time and money the race to the bottom fails to deliver the safest possible service across an entire chairman costello ranking member and members of the subcommittee our thoughts and prayers continue for the families continental thirty four zero seven as we focus all of our efforts on doing everything possible  to make sure that an accident like that never happens again regional airlines have become vital to the nation more than fifty percent of the scheduled passenger flight and seventy five percent of the nation's communities served exclusively by regional airlines but most importantly regional airlines are committed to safety i'm proud to announce today that virtually all of our members airlines that transport ninety eight percent of the passengers carried by our member airlines either have a stablished or have committed to establishing in the near term a focal flight operations quality assurance program for asap the results are similar virtually all of our members have implemented this valuable safety tool for their pilots some of them having done so up to a decade ago in june we responded immediately to the f a s call the action and for the record all our a member airlines responded in writing to the administrators june twenty fourth letter on short notice seven are a member airlines were invited to attend that first meeting everyone sent its senior executives including six demonstrating what chairman oberstar has commented that safety begins in the boardroom that meeting featured a candid discussion of critical issues leading to a safety agenda that included a dozen similar town hall meetings across the u s each of those meetings was co chaired by a regional airline executive also played a key role in the nine week flight duty and rest and let me state the members of the regional airline association are committed to this rule making to adopting the new science based regulations that arise from the process and doing so in a prompt and timely manner in addition to being participants actively in the f a s efforts has embarked on our own strategic safety initiative that aligns with the f a a efforts and the goals of this committee  initiative includes number one forming a two asked force comprised of regional airline safety directors and operations officials to review all the procedures and n t s b recommendations that could help prevent accidents number two will be working with the washington state university sleep and performance research center will study the fatigue risks associated with regional airline pilot operations third will be working with the flight safety foundation and will study the feasibility and practicality of developing an industry fatigue risk management system and these elements the following elements i'm going to may require some legislative or regulatory action and we look forward to working with congress in the f a a to identify these needed safety tools and these include stablish ing a single database of pilot records extending the background check time frame to ten years third improving the tracking and analysis of checkride for exploring the use of random fatigue test pilot and fifth considering the use of cockpit voice recorders for accident prevention please let me also address commuting the arc did not deal with commuting so we do not expect the rulemaking to address but commuting must be conducted in a responsible manner each of our member carriers has a non punitive policy in place and reserve crews on call to allow a pilot to drop a trip if that pilot feels incapable of flying alertly mr chairman safety is a never ending effort and one that necessitates collaboration and cooperation among all stale stakeholders the airlines our employees and the government we in regional aviation are committed to ensuring that the u s air it's no consolation to the families devastated by the colgan air tragedy our members are taking action to make our aviation system which is already the safest in the world even before i discuss some of those initiatives i'd like to improvements today result from careful collaborative evaluation of operational data practices civil aviation has an empirical disciplined approach to safety third the bedrock principle i safety one level of safety one level of enforcement while the principle while this principle of individual accountability is critical to improving safety is a shared commitment we work closely with other regional carriers and pilots to develop a common strategy for reducing risk we also welcome the opportunity to join with regional airlines and labor represented in a series of twelve regional forums around the country to communicate the results of that call the action with the indispensable leadership of ministry to babbitt several important initiatives have already been undertaken the creation of an aviation rule making committee to develop recommendations to revise flight and duty time recommended regulations for flight crew members our industry representatives were very active participants in that process these number two our commitment to adopting what labor and management have a dentist is most effective practices for improve those commitments were reflected in the air carrier letters to the administration and  my partner from the regional airlines i can assure you that every single carrier has in fact replied to the administration and we covered the following topics asking pilots to voluntarily disclose  that all of our members already have those programs have had them in place for many many years along with a number of other safety related training programs holding periodic meetings which is reviewing crew member training program as we all know our union partners are crucial to any effort to improve safety labor organizations have committed to several initiatives focused on usa as one hundred fifteen colleges and universities who represent almost eleven thousand students involved in academic preparation to become professional pilots and to create a significant percentage of the professional pilot workforce a single men alone provides one in four of the professional pilots flying air air carrier aircraft today in the united states one in four this is these numbers are not insignificant we applaud the committee the subcommittee for focusing on the airline industry the aviation educators have studied h r thirty three seventy one and find that most of its provisions are sound and will likely achieve the objective of improving our safety there is one requirement however that causes us deep concerns i'm referring to the airline transport pilot a t p only provision described in section ten requiring a pilot to achieve an a t p before being allowed to enter the cockpit of a part one twenty one air carrier for a pilot to acquire the a t p he or she must be at least twenty three years of age and have flown at least fifteen hundred hours graduates from college and university programs typically have or in the private commercial instrument multi engine and perhaps a certified flight instructor cations have about two hundred fifty to three hundred fifty hours of flying time and may not yet be twenty three years of age this bill would require these graduates to spend an unnecessary number of years building their flight time so as to qualify for an entry level first officer position the a t p requirement as a quantity driven requirement that requires little improvement in skills quantity not quality so what do we know about quality a two thousand and eight pilot study examine the performance of all four hundred fifty two new hire first officers for a large regional airline who started training during two thousand and six and two thousand and seven the results were eye opening the first officer new hires that performed best were those who had five hundred hours of flight time or less and were graduates from abb workforce the higher the level of safety but the a t p only provision in this bill would close a cockpit doors these high quality entry level first officers so we're asking you today to remove this provision from the bill or to modify it so that graduates of high quality programs that meet abby outcomes are able to enter the cockpit as entry level first officers at a much lower flight time requirement than the a t p requirement fifteen hundred hours what are the results if you allow the a t p only provision to remain unchanged in the bill the quantity driven a t p requirement would cost potential students who would normally enter a high quality university program the shortest route to the first officer seat why would i spend four years at a college or university paying tuition  flight fees when a graduation i still need to fly for another two years to be qualified to enter the air carrier as a first officer trainee they probably wouldn't they would seek out local flight training providers acquire the necessary ratings and spend the next year or two flying cheap thirty year old single engine airplanes to build their flight time they would repeat the same flying hour a thousand times over and add little value to the scant knowledge they gained from their earlier training at the end of it the pilot would take the a t p written and flight exams and and spend the next thousand hours with they being mentored by a seasoned captain flying the line are learning more each day at the five hundred fifteen under our point these for saucers as purply prepared air carrier professionals and so far superior to those who simply bill flight time by flying nonproductive hours just to get to the magic number the provision will fill the cockpits a very poor quality first officer and decimate the robust high quality flight education programs about universes all across the country for example well the one at kent state in ohio the program at central texas college also the actual program at middle tennessee state university would go away and some of those at western michigan university in each kentucky university these are just a few examples in total of the programs that colleges and universities across this great country which now enroll of one thousand students in flight education programs would close or would suffer we aviation educators know this we are the ones closest to the future of aviation education in this country and we're sounding the alarm please don't kill the source of the highest qualified entry level first officer pilot entering the workforce to do so by retaining the a t p only provision in this bill will diminish the safety of the entire system cripple four thousand two hundred dollars a year in an effort to attract the level wages minimum hiring qualifications have dropped to the lowest possible many of our nation's experienced pilots are now unwilling to accept employment to captain prater as you know from roundtable discussions with many of the people on the witnesses on the panel our goal was in h r thirty three seventy one was two one of the goals was to raise the minimum standards you would have the first officer and the captain at the same minimum level of experience and training and that of course would require an  i would ask you dr brady has raised an interesting question and feels that both the four year institutions that are accredited there are twenty six i understand two in my congressional district in southern illinois university in carbondale and st louis university at parkes airport and of course dr brady who offers his testimony today do you believe that these institutions are at a disadvantage if in fact we require that the first officer receive an a t p license as opposed to just a commercial pilot's license i do not believe that they will be disadvantaged in fact i agree with them that they are producing very good pilots who can go out and become airline pilots but the problem is the airlines have become the introductory it used to be the final spot for an aviator you went out and you earned your time before you became an airline now it's a transitionary job you go to work for an airline and fly the public around so that you get a good job with a corporation or you get a good job with one of the freight operators that think about that young aviators who have got a good education gone through the university program through their first job at and support allows for some breathing room in here we certainly have a time for the breathing room we can work with and the school to find a way to ensure that that level is brought up but would i would disagree that all the pilots here agree with that statement i just made i happen to be a pilot myself and i certainly don't agree with that i think in terms of who's entering the cockpit as i mentioned it's the quality issue that's  important certainly they're trying providers out there who are turning out pilots of lesser quality but the quality of the pilots being turned out by the universities is significantly higher than anything else in the country and i would add that  the statement made a moment ago was that the military provides excellent training for carrier pilots which is true but in the pilot you'll study the military pilots who had come from the military and into the into the regional carrier  were all of this scored very well in terms of being able to accommodate the training for the air carrier they didn't score as well as the five hundred hour pilots coming out of college and universities so i think there needs to be some measure of quality of the product coming into the air carrier and not just some magic number that that's going to bless everyone and the same with the same brush the quality of training is not the same throughout the system first distinction would be you would be a commercial pilot if you wanted to go to work for an airline you would have to have additional skills and additional training that would be pleasurable to the mission and one of the things that i point out to people florida pilots and a terrible tragedy that happened right here in washington both of those pilots were military trained both of them had thousands of hours but the first officer had never seen an airplane before so i'm suggesting to you that perhaps we should consolidate some of our thinking here and make certain that we don't just accept that quality is thrown out or quantity is the only answer but i think a meld of the two which is what we're proposing in our advanced rule  notice might be a better solution so those are my observations mr loftus and again i'll state it one more time there's no substitute for experience in the air however i  agree that i've flown with many ember real pilots and university educated pilots and they turn out to be very good pilots eventually but the airlines are not entry level positions go back and say that again they need to earn their way up to it it's not an entry level they shouldn't be flying people in the back is their first job ministry or babbitt you heard mr cohen's testimony that all of his member respond and i'll take some responsibility for this we weren't crystal clear as to the vehicle as to how you would respond and i am of the belief that several people attempted to respond to us to different locations some by us mail and so forth i am comfortable that we've had a much larger percentage i have some numbers here there are a lot closer to what mr cohen suggested than what we originally gave you a few weeks ago we've gone back we have checked with the airlines we have reached out for the unions and asked that if they did something to us we should have updated numbers for you but i think the responses have been very positive i think we will take some of the blame for not being clear as to program that we've asked them to identify every program they have so we will highlight what they have their willingness to adopt a program they don't and those who didn't respond at all i would make note for the record testimony and i quote it is the professional responsibility of every professional pilot if he or she does not feel sufficiently well rested and not fly remember carriers has a non punitive policy in place to allow  pilot to drop a trip if the pilot feels incapable of flying alertly you heard captain prater the punitive actions have been taken with the regional carriers for those upon them threatening their job giving them discipline and giving them time off for not just calls but for basic things that call the captains decision to write up an airplane a maintenance item those are the worst practices that we've identified and yet some managements are still insisting that they're going to beat their pilots into submission thank you and now recognizes the o be a difference in quantity and quality are quality hours supposed to sterile hours and clearly you want to have quality hours maybe lots of them so how could you is very important to providing someone with an appropriate level of experience and experience of the classroom but it prepares them for greater responsibilities and if someone just went out to a local operator  of the right seat and they're mentored in the right seat and after a time they come much more capable than the officers first officers who have not gone through that type of training i think it's interesting too that many of us sitting here at the table were products of the military system that provided proper training and our government felt comfortable in placing us in command of aircraft at less than a thousand hours i know and my case i was being mentored at meet and then we go out and visit these institutions and make sure they're maintaining the standards that they say they have the pilots coming out of these very highly regulated are are very high quality we've been hearing a lot of calm talk about the restructuring of the airline industry and the pressure on wages entry level wages this heater airlines and the have that passion that's what they want their profession to be i wish that were different i wish that entering first officers and the regional air carriers were paid forty thousand a year but unfortunately that's not the way it is and our graduates have to have to react to that reality they have debts they have that they have to pay off that at some point they'll begin to move and start to make some money but i agree that the  way too low and in the air care industry i'm just not sure how what can be done to affect that in terms of what a congressional activity might might be the pilots are in our programs understand that they're going to start out in some fairly low wage situations in fact some of our instructor pilots when they go into an air carrier take a pay cut they understand that and are willing to are willing  to still take that job be a lot more willing if it were forty thousand a set of sixteen thousand but still they're willing to take those jobs they know in the long run that the higher paying jobs are there once they get beyond  such and i wonder if you could just elaborate on that comment and explain what's been happening i know in my own state and you're familiar to midwest airlines has been taken over and a lot of the experienced pilots are  experiencing layoffs and having to go into second truck drivers and things of that sort so you comment on what's happening industry and what happens is people are gaining experience and then they're going to fly commuters are not commuters and they're going to fly for corporate for a fraction for any of the other possibilities out there in the aviation world or they're simply leaving the industry altogether and that's that's a real problem that we're finding with retaining people and our interest in retaining experienced people in our industry if you could fix that part you would fix the experience problem for instance i read a book a man named peter buffington who wrote a book about his experiences trying to survive on twelve thousand dollars a year as a regional forest officer he eventually left the industry now as an engineer with garmin in kansas i called him up and he said if he could make a living wage to support his family he would be back flying airplanes dr brady alluded to that was his first not only that but he could give  e names of people just like him who would be back in the industry experienced professional pilots with a g p l license thanks the ranking member and recognizes the gentleman from missouri mr carnahan  thank you mr chairman and i want to thank the panel for their insights and testimony today i want to add my condolences to the families and friends that were lost in the flight thirty four  seven it is indeed another tragic reminder that more must be done to strengthen the safety you know radiation system that we must have one level of safety throughout the industry and i want to thank chairman costello his leadership in promoting the bill to do just that it's also clear from listening to you that experience matters t matters that standards matter and all of us need to be working in that direction i want to start with a couple of questions first to administrate or babbitt one of th ings you mentioned with regard to experience that was the most important but also challenging the setting up these mentoring programs and i'd like you to really expand upon that in terms of of how we can address some of those challenges to actually get those programs in place you have based on our regional safety forms that we conducted around the country we have a tremendous amount of feedback certainly good but experience actually enhance your decision making are very important to put forward before a pilot and so the idea was we should be thinking about modifying our training scenarios where pilots are exposed more hurt but you're going to learn and we have a robust capability simulation today to do that the second part that we've come to is we have incredibly experienced pilots vailable and we have new pilots coming into the in the hudson how do we take and impart that experience to a young pilot i don't care if that pilot has fifteen hundred hours twenty five hundred hours they haven't seen the things that some of the pilots at this table have where do we create unions bring them together let them have quarterly review let them design these scenarios for experience there's nothing we can do to regulate we can't there's just no way to get there so those are some of the things that  captain's position at every mainline airline there is one seniority list if i were to get hired at continental airlines tomorrow are u s airways tomorrow united airways tomorrow i would fly as a first officer for a good ten to t welve years before i assume i'd fly with hundreds of experienced captains i'd probably have eight or ten years of experience but each one of those mainline carriers operate if you will are control what goes on at another regional carrier and they move the flying from one to the other as we negotiate a standard or a decent contract they take the flying away and give it to somebody else who will run it cheaper we have ready list so what happens is if they give it to the cheapest operator and they've got two hundred pilots and overnight they've got four hundred pilots the least experienced pilot who's been flying for maybe a year is not captain we've got to address that situation of moving that flying back and forth because the experience is never gained and all of a sudden you're sitting there in the left seat making decisions thank you thank you chair person not living up to the standards not producing the professionalism that's expected across the industry that's a potential point of risk that's where the system breaks down and what i'm finding when we look across the industry  i've had several instances and they're not all pilots i had reason recently to listen to any shane for the controller i was very disappointing the lack of professionalism that i heard contrast that  against the controller in the hudson accident that first officer skiles was aboard that was one of the most professional handlings from everybody involved that was professionalism and it was it was personified right there but we just can't they hire are they hiring many people that have just the minimum two hundred fifty hours are are you finding many people who are leaving the military or are other people with experience are you are are there a lot of experienced pilots out that out there that you're hiring and secondly another question on this do you think the fatigue rules right now are  six hundred thousand more than six hundred thousand employees it's it's three hundred something very very difficult time and that's what i was most what i most and most are are not hiring now a most of the carriers right now are member airlines to my knowledge i don't believe anybody is that at two fifty level most five hundred thousand or fifteen hundred maybe even even even even that's sort of what i assume that are because there are so many employees or potential employees out there that generally you can find people with a lot of experience i think the other witnesses have have have characterized a very significant and and long term problem that the qualifications for all professionals going forward in a very very difficult industry i know mr may can speak extensively to the to the kind of disruption that the industry has always gone through and maybe as bad as ever now  dictated by a konami regional airlines have crew bases and doesn't attract a community surround the country and that's kind of an incredible statement to me that it's a lifestyle choice and when i look at the first officer flight jump flight and arrived at two thirty eastern time in the morning less memphis for new york at four eighteen eastern time in the morning arrived in new york at six twenty three a m eastern time and then the flight left new york at nine nineteen p m eastern time twenty four hours later she was commuting most of that time and it's hard for me to believe that that's a lifestyle choice and it's not driven by economics which are now recognizes the gentle lady from texas thank you very much with the chairman they consider to be their highest priorities i was talking about outdated technology and they were talking about the human and the what the pilots have concerns about i they desire to have marshals but there has not been any change in the funding so therefore made times that they want them the pilot has to pay for themselves when personal funds and  they feel that they have any use vacation time for their training because they are not given time off for that time to train and the eight hours that they are limited to flying continually ends up being sometimes twelve to fourteen hours actually because they have to leave one place go to another want to wait three or four hours and then fly that eight hours and over overwater flying it can be very tiring if international travel but they usually have to leave late in the evening and they're headed for heathrow which is the busiest airport i think in the world after trying to sleep all day they are very very tired by the time they get that flight to heathrow there is  concern about extending this time and they feel that if they were going to move it all of need to be reduced the this one i don't understand so clearly it is my writing there's a loophole called the dead hea this calling causing many hours and then deregulation of airlines gave them no deregulation they have been much more regulated that concerns me that let me tell you really  absolutely let me questions fall into two categories as i heard them and please correct me if i misunderstood the first i think has to do with federal flight deck officers and their ability to carry weapons on board maybe not fly just be on duty prepared to fly sometimes maintenance delays occur and so we track that time there is a maximum amount of time that you can be on duty the second limit is the amount of time you can actually fly the aircraft  then you would have to go over but let me tell you where we're going at least what the are reported to us the aviation rulemaking committee has addressed some of these things number one duty time in the future in fact count deadheading time would count as duty approaches two hundred feet is an entirely different scenario we now recognize that going to work at eight o'clock in the morning and being on duty currently there's only one duty period of time it has a maximum it doesn't matter whether you show up at midnight or at noon it's the same the new rules recognize that people have rhythm and it takes into account when you go to work when normal people go to work eight or nine o'clock in the morning you're well rested that's fine go to work at midnight would you be prepared to stay on duty for fifteen hours of course not so the new rules takes into account all of those things hopefully to address them i would note for the record that there were eighteen people eighteen input to this committee from a variety of cross sections in the industry including scientists and doctors who have made the studies and they essentially came to consensus with few exceptions program so the process that they go through to determine whether or not and we determine whether or not they're a good professional pilot material is a process that takes time it takes them  to interact with the curriculum and then determine and we determine whether or not they can they can successfully do that so it's about it's about forty percent and that's pretty standard for a four year degree and for what reason do they  lack of intellectual ability to make the types of calculations to make conceptual difficulties or is it a matter of physical inability to manage controls and so forth if you if you asked them they usually relate some personal issues but in many cases it's because of funds because they have don't have the funds to continue a professional pilot program the flying cost a good deal of money to get all those ratings so many of them they wash themselves out because they move into another program simply because they run out of funds but we have students that are simply incapable of mastering the curriculum and those of course we we have to  the program even though that's not required at that point later on they're going to be have to be able to pass that so we use that as an entry requirements many of our and i'm speaking now from my own university that many of the universities have that same issue they period of quite a few years of taking flying lessons from a number of different instructors in different locations across the country and i've been really struck by the variability in the ability but structures they might put curriculum but just take pot luck with whatever instructors they might get that's just a side comment mr babbitt you can take it for what it's worth turning how does a system work if you have a number of pilots who take lessons from different instructors and just gradually work their way and do you have any good measures of their ability to fly have standards that are easily quantified beyond argument so that you can make good judgments as to whether or not this person is safe to fly i think we do  eight hundred million people we want twenty nine months without an accident and then we had a tragedy if we never had another one that would be fine with me one is too many but the standards i think you've shown themselves to be awfully good and while we can are about some criteria what i think is wholesome in this debate as you're hearing right here at this panel is we're trying to find the best way is it is it more curriculum is it more academic is it more tech actual experience is it checking is it better simulation in training but at the standards are reinforced they've risen to those standards are reinforced over and over again when you think about what an airline pilot once they've risen to the level where they're flying passengers for a living they take several check rides they take line checks they fly with other pilots their peers they have professional standards programs f a a inspectors make spot checks all the time their carrier inspectors going to arrive and ride to jump seat  and so these are these are unannounced random tests no other profession i literally would defy you to find another profession that has professionals that are as well checked as the airline pilots fly the pastors of this country and i think the product of that is an incredible safety record i was impressed in reading all the material listening to some of the transcript of the fleet in buffalo and i was just appalled wondered how they  and i made a challenge at a recent safety forum where i told every pilot in the room and there were six hundred of them that if any of them listen to that transcript and didn't just hang their head they didn't deserve to be professional  agree with that just one last comment in the good old days before nine eleven members of this committee were allowed to fly in the jump seat i found it extremely useful for my standard not all of them were in that category but the others that were there were certainly competent some people just seem to have the magic touch and say they really become one with the airplane and that's really what you're looking for someone with the capability not just intellectual knowledge but the coordination that's necessary to handle an airplane and it's just very impressive it was very impressive for me to fly there and see the quality of the for convening this meeting today and for the panel assembled first start off by saying that i agree with the belief that experience does matter and mr brady suggested in his testimony and his further subsequent remarks that time doesn't constitute quality time in the airplane does not constitute quality but my argument is how do you obtain that quality how do you obtain that i know it from my military training as well as those who have gone to military training that the most intens part of your training happens before you even put hands on the airplane through the simulator through the instruction that you received on the ground and we find that that has been a robust part of of our training however what is missing from this discussion right now we're talking about fatigue and we're talking a number of hours but we're not talking about the training that these individuals received because the combination of suspect training and low hours leads to tragic consequences like we're realizing right now if you'll indulge me mr chairman just to read a couple quips from the n t s b report the f d r indications are crude move the flap to ten degrees two seconds later to stall warning stick shaker activated the autopilot disconnected the same time the stick shaker activated the crew added power to seventy five percent torque the airplane to grand pitch motion up accompanied by left for all followed by the stick pusher being activated in that n t s b report they suggest they suggest that colgan the colgan pilots who are trained on the q four hundred those that were interviewed had received a push or demonstration or instruction in the q four hundred some ask for that q four check pilots interview demonstrated and demonstration or instruction of the aircraft put your system is not part of the training syllabus or recurrent training on the q four hundred so you're telling me that these pilots they climbed in that airplane on that fatal day were not trained how to recover from a full stall from a full stall and we're talking about hours you could take the most you could take the most qualified pilot with thousands of hours and put him in an airplane not adequately trained and they were i would argue that they would not be able to recover from that sort of scenario so we need to include in this is caution the type of training that these individuals are receiving prior to climbing into a cockpit and flying so many folks around now i want to be clear about this the n t s b since nine hundred seventy eight has been pushing the a to include to include their training not only stall recognition but stall recovery procedures in forcing airlines and their respective companies to corporate this kind of training  recovery from a full stall condition on that day did not know how to recover from a full stall condition and that is an acceptable in my opinion and this panel today i want mr babbitt to commit to me and to the members of this panel i know you just got here but i want you commit to me that you're going to listen to the n t s b recommendation and force these air carriers that are taking low our pilots low our aviators and putting him in training conditions suspect and we're going to cooperate that in this discussion today there are a couple of things that if i if i could every pilot you don't get a private pilot's license without having demonstrated the ability to recover from a stall you don't get a private pilot's license without recognizing the approach  a commercial license requires the same thing it actually requires a complicated recovery from a complicated stall every airline approach to stall and recovery what went wrong in thirty four zero seven they failed to recover from the warning of a stall so a lot was missed here short coming here was a lack of actual simulation in training and that was a shortcomings one that needs to be overcome we need to revise the training so that anything that can possibly happen in an airplane the pilot has seen before has been demonstrated to him or her and they understand the techniques to recovery and in the  fly that could have been a part of experience or quality perhaps an arguably but this aircraft pusher system is not part of the training syllabus for colgan and i just want to be clear about that that this is not even part of their training syllabus how to recover from a full stall of course they should have never gotten into a stick shaker condition which is a stall the first indication to stall recognition that you're going to approach a stall but after they misapplied the procedures or they didn't  do this correctly there was no training beyond that so once they cross their line the line of the stick shaker in my opinion they were in uncharted air i don't disagree i mean we starting with situation and i think that's true all the way across the board why full power was applied is a question that looms with every professional pilot but the fact remains we learn from this and we make sure that this never happens again close mr chairman there were five thousand six hundred twenty three flying hours on that airplane that day that's that seems to me like that's a very experienced crew but without the proper training without the proper training it doesn't matter how many hours you have and that discussed earlier in the many of these issues have been addressed and even since the legislation was introduced they have been strengthened and worked out at the staff level when we go to the floor they will be contained in the mr babbitt the sterile cockpit rule violations have been notable factors in both the lexington and the buffalo plane crash i guess the question is very difficult how do you how's the f a a going to step up and for some of the conversation in that zone is limited to operational conversations only that is a very there's a number of things that are very difficult for us to enforce when you state things like that currently we do not again air carrier inspectors ride if a bad habit is noticed they're going to bring it to their attention but again that's so many things that you simply can't legislate does go back to the call i have made to the industry and to the pilot unions to revisit professionalism the way we're going to monitor that is when one pilot begins talking at eight thousand feet in the other pilot says we're in a sterile environment i'm sorry we'll talk about this on the ground support the development of an audit system for a pilot for a pilot professionalism on the flight deck in other words would you support something in that nature to help with this problem well i'm not exactly now regulate these things but the enforcement how do you how do you develop the system so that the that or the pilot does that well that's basically the system that we have today  their training rules such as this cockpit ten thousand you solve all of these problems we're finding in the industry today it's a matter of getting professionals back in the cockpit thank you thanks i agree or you know you have professionals playing football and you have professionals playing you know basketball whatever that you do even though they're very professional and they very high degree of skill they break the rules and you have a referee to call them down and you know you move on so i guess you know the question is you know how do we working together not not we've already got the mandate there but working together we do see a situation where in two cases it broke down you know that that was going on where when it should have gone on so again hopefully we can work together and do a little bit better job of enforcing that so thank you very much  thank you mr chairman my first question is for mr babbitt mr babbitt and mr may's testimony on page four he lays out several recommendations in mr cohen's testimony instruction for he lays out five recommendations and then again also on mr cohen's testimony on page two have you read their testimony or are you familiar with the recommendations were provided thank you i did in fact however i yes you have them have you read them and what are you going to do to implement them well i have read their testimony i don't have them in front of me i'm sorry you could be specific with just a general quick recap of the recommendations we have limited time i'm page four of mr may's testimony at the very top it talks about implementing a policy of asking pilot applicants to voluntarily disclose f a a records and so on in mr cohen's testimony recommendations to congress he lays out for five key points in mr cohen's testimony said they work closely with the major airlines the f a a the labor organizations to discuss openly and candidly the safety issues most affecting our industry into the near term are you familiar with that scenario we had other safety initiatives a call to action brought together a number of groups across the nation we have started an aviation rule making committee to study the flight time and duty time issues and i would suggest to you that in the olympics of regulatory procedures we just set a three minute mile we have that rule making has come back to us in draft we will get our rule out for its executive review probably as quickly done now as we're working through that would be my feedback i wouldn't disagree however i am bound by the federal procedures act and as much as i wish i could make rules instantaneously there are rules and procedures that require us to go through a mister captain we have programs aviation safety action programs flight operations quality assurance programs that provide invaluable opportunities to on cover mistakes mr loftus i would ask you to except for my constituents in the michigan seventh district on behalf of all of the families of flight thirty four seven our sympathies and best  wishes my district and my hometown as battle creek michigan it's the home of western michigan university's college of aviation mr brady mentioned that in his testimony i want to focus on quality and dr brady i'd like to ask you some follow up questions to your testimony i couldn't be more pleased than agree more that our focus in all of our training programs should be on quality you cite that a very high percentage of commercial airline pilots come from collegiate programs that's what i know in my hometown i see the bronco aircraft flying around our skies regularly i've sat in their flight simulator  d they really do a fabulous job and i think we're here to talk about preparation for industry and so i've read your testimony and studied it and i guess i want to ask you about whether there is a difference between meeting the educational goals for accreditation versus meeting the rigors of commercial airline operations  specifically the transfer of knowledge in high tech aircraft is something that western michigan university's program is focused on i know they feel that they can meet that technologically advanced aircraft or a standard which is required by the airline industry i understand it isn't necessarily required for accreditation or for completion of collegiate programs could you talk about that difference and whether you agree that collegiate programs should meet that industry standard yes i do i do agree that  those programs should have those kind of systems and processes i would like to also compliment western michigan on this performance of the national flying association made they did very well thank you most of our programs that are accredited have some have that many of them have simulators that are equipped with glass cockpit procedures and all of them will go way beyond what the f a a requires in terms of a minimum set of performance criteria in meeting their  opportunities so the pilots who are coming out of these programs are very highly skilled and that's part of my issue here is the only requirement is a one size fits all and it doesn't work one size doesn't fit all because there are into an airline we're missing a step for that lack of experience and i think that's where administrator babbitt has focused on that's where we're focusing on what's that next step to turn somebody who's had that basic two hundred hours worth of training into somebody who can face the rigors of real life scheduled flying service captain in follow up with training in technologically advanced aircraft to help address that shortcoming i don't believe so it's not all about technology it's about basic airmanship until you have seen what a modest cloud looks like marilyn to keillor cloud from the air because you're not going to see that the simulator you're not going to know what it is until you see it hopefully you'll see it with a more experienced aviator who will mentor you and say we're not going that way we're going that way that's the value of experience great captain thank you thanks to the panel i'll take those comments back to dean dave powell  western michigan university thank you to captain prater's testimony and it causes tremendous concern mainline airlines are frequently faced with pressures on their marketing plans result in the use of regional feed co chairing partners another airline at the end of their contract now we have larger regional carriers some contracting with smaller regional airlines and then you've gone say in some extreme cases airlines have outsourced a majority of their routes to regional airlines with pilots having as little as two hundred fifty hours experience while mainline carrier for load its own pilots with more than a decade of experience and then further another cost cutting tactic used by regional vendor airlines is in short staffing would lead to pilot pushing fewer pilots flying more and more hours per month and a resultant reduction in safety margins and then finally it's not uncommon training at such carriers is conducted only t f a required minimum so this raises a number of i think extraordinary issues issues that i've been raising on this committee for well more than a decade and that would be the low required minimum  by the f a a which i believe leads to lowest common denominator which leads to some contracting contracting with regional airlines who subcontract with other regional airlines at every step along the way the people get paid less they have less experience and there is less integrity to the training programs of those extremely small low budget carriers secondly is the pay or the lifestyle choice we heard from someone here a woman living with her mother as an adult because she can't afford an apartment on her own a lifestyle choice yet lifestyle choices she want to fly an airplane and she isn't being paid anywhere near a living wage i don't call it a lifestyle choice i call it exploitation by a profit making entity and then and then finally the the whole issue of the just the  here's a question what if we raise the minimum now wouldn't that resolve at least some of these issues of you know chase the least experienced person to work for the lowest we believe that it would be a start on on the system we have identified what we consider the marketplace or systemic problems of outsourcing and its effect on having experience in the cockpit in this specific accident the fact that continental airlines had laid off their mainline pilots people who had ten or twelve years of experience who could have been flying that airplane the fact if there weren't so many vendors working off so many different seniority systems this specific crew with their level of experience and training would have never flown together the captain would have had six or eight years of experience that experience is out there but here's the economic we've asked the mainline carriers they're charging twenty five dollars for your bag they're charging fifty dollars for your second bag or one hundred dollars to take five minutes to change your reservation for one dollar an hour per passenger we can fix these economic problems so if you're going from here to st louis if you would pay two dollars for the captain and two dollars for the copilot we could pay a decent wage we can get that out of the mainline carriers and the regional partners there managements have no control over revenue  all the decisions are made by the mainline managers and that's what it would take to fix those problems so you wouldn't have to live with your parents when you're thirty years old so one dollar per hour so that means i fly weekly to the west coast for an app five hour flight depending on weather conditions let's say it was four thirty five yesterday so it would have cost me an extra nine dollars to have the most experienced best trained pilot you think there's anybody up there who wouldn't pay an extra nine bucks flying across the country or two back four bucks for a short flight to get there alive i don't now the question is how do we break this vicious cycle the lowest common denominator what happens is we have some very responsible regional carriers who are doing a great job but their problem is they're competing so called with these low budget folks i think the way to solve that is to raise the minimum and raise them dramatically administrators babbitt what do you say to that when we talk about raising the minimum i presume you're talking about the requirements to be hired as a first officer and that is correct yep that is a subject of an advance notice of proposed rule making that we put out and we have suggested just that before this debate started and so forth we came out and recognized that there needed to be some additional or at least in the f a s belief there needed to be some additional qualifications training and experience and what our proposal would do would be to add all three of those components the panel in some discussion here has taken some exception some of them believe experience should carry a higher value others quality that's why we have proposed rule making that's why we put out those notices and that's why we'll take their lead in but very bad didn't you testified of the same issue back in the mid ninety's when you were in a position with the association and what it's been more than a decade and now we have an advanced notice of a proposed rule making fatigue that one has languished for thirty five years it's going to be we're going to have a rule by the end of the year so we are really aggressively trying to move some of these issues forward we haven't touched this rule commercial pilot rating and p rating the only difference was they had three hundred and that was in one three hundred mine i got mine when i had twelve hundred hours that was a requirement in one thousand nine hundred sixty eight it changed from twelve hundred to fifteen hundred that's the only change it's been made in forty years  so while people might take a little exception that it's taking a little too long the fact is we're moving it and i will accelerate it as quickly as i can and then ned to mr may was preceded some time ago by a guy named bolger and i had the same conversation with mr bolger back in the early ninety's and at that point he represented that he didn't think that we wanted to incur these costs on the system and i said well sir i think that you know you have a large and diverse group of airlines you represent but aren't you putting the better ones who have higher standards at a disadvantage if you're representing the views of the ones who are the most cost competitive or we might say cost cutting or we might say some of the things we talked about earlier in terms of the problems they're causing what if we had a level playing field where we raise raise the bar a little bit and yeah we've heard how just i don't buy it if you're going to say gee any upward price pressure as opposed to this relentless downward price pressure is the is going to be detrimental to the industry when everybody has to play by the same rules so no one's going the regionals and are using more and more sub regionals they are driving that system with their code sharing arrangements so yes certainly they have very qualified pilots and i'm not going to that's not what i'm talking about here but i'm talking about the system with set up which they are  becoming more and more the public is flying on this part then they are on the mainline now and i think minister babbitt has talked about a number of rule making procedures that are underway to significantly elevate favor of having the opportunity to maintain what is still the safest system in the world but we did that one time when it doesn't work right for you know catastrophic and we want to prevent and i don't think any of us and i see a bad trend here reminds me of the trend we had when valu jet had outsourced and outsourced outsourcing of their maintenance and you got to a level where some people didn't know that makes thing oxygen canisters and  tires in the hull of the aircraft that wasn't a bad idea and you know i just worry that where the system is driving that way now with these you know the way these regional and sub regional contracts where you please t air the association support the higher standards and i look forward to the ministre to babbitts expediting it so i'm not back here in sixteen more years talking to yet a future administrator about the same issue i hope not to be here and i hope of reason by then thank you chairman the chair would say to my friend from oregon that we're not going to wait on a roll making that's the reason that we've introduced our thirty three seventy one and we're going to proceed there are things that we can do  that we can put into law that we can we can pass through the house and hopefully through the senate and we will work with the f a a along the way but we know what has happened in the past as far as rulemaking is concerned it takes a long period of time i would join others in commending the ministry here babbitts in expediting some things already since he's been in his position and i trust that he will continue to move forward with this issue i have a final question for some of the members of the panel we've talked about as dr brady indicated his concern about the disadvantage of the twenty six accredited schools versus  the flight training schools let me talk a little bit or ask a little bit about the value of classroom time versus time in the cockpit time in the cockpit versus time in a simulator time in the classroom versus time in the cockpit versus being in the cockpit over in the southern california airspace or the new york airspace and i want to start with mr skiles and then i'll work my way through the panel if you would comment the value of time in the classroom versus time in the cockpit versus time in the simulator  i would like to first of all say that we are very happy we think that accredited schools do a great job of training our future airline pilots but we argue that education is only part of what makes a complete pilot while gaining gaining the experience to qualify for an a t p pilot is exposed to challenging and unpredictable circumstances which are just not possible in a classroom this gives them the opportunity to develop airmanship skills we call them and i'd like to define define that for you flying is as much a skill as it is just you don't become a virtuoso on a cello after a few lessons even training can't prepare a pilot for every day line flying you take away the autopilot the glideslope auto throttles and you're left with basic flying skills that you have developed the ability to plan a descent to a certain point and be there at a certain altitude the ability to fly a perfect glide profile by i alone the ability to judge when drift on a base leg and adjust your bank angle to roll out perfectly aligned with the runway these are airmanship skills this is what we find is i think sorely lacking in our industry today they can only be achieved by experience in the cockpit so once again we think that education is part of the equation but once again you need the experience that you're going to attain as you're getting the requirements for the a t p license to develop those critical airmanship skills that are going to come to play in circumstances that you encounter in your every airline flying career thank you so you know the bottom line issue you strongly support  absolutely the absolute requirement is the absolute minimum requirement that we should be seeing for middens to our airline cockpit captain prater i would concur but just a little bit further i think there are different ways of gaining valuable experience i do think that there should be a more intense focus on the educational aspect ground school if you will provisions of becoming a pilot we do support the requirement for the higher we also feel that there are some interim steps that can bridge the gap  f just flight time experience there's very little flight time experience it all adds to one's total amount of experience and it's not just in a training environment you have to go out there and sometimes do it to get better so we would like to see an increase in ground school whether it's in the basic airmanship private commercial instrument rating and we'd like to see it go beyond that there is what you learn in the class glass room but for the other way around the classroom is a need is environment those positive come out of the colleges in the universities are truly good pilots they turn out to be very good first officers and captains but again the airlines are not an entry level position i don't believe i think that you know it's got to be earned this knowledge there they can she taught in the classroom it can only be learned in the plane in the simulator important part of  believe that academic experience in a college or university is the best means to attain those levels the simulator integrated with the aircraft that's the right kind of simulator that simulates the aircraft and there's a transfer of training that one size fits all we believe there needs to be some modification of that so that the high quality programs are not disadvantaged by the low quality programs we believe there needs to be some measure taken so that the a witnesses for participating in testifying and hearing today as i said from the outset this subcommittee intends to uphold our it meant not only to the families of flight thirty four zero seven but to the american people that we will continue rest of oversight we will pursue our bringing our safety bill to the to the floor of the house of representatives to move it through so the we a meeting with many of the stakeholders represented here today we look forward to continuing to work with you and as i said we are committed to aggressive oversight to make certain that we improve the