i intend to give a shard opening statement that i will call on the ranking member mr p try for his opening statement or any remarks that he may have before we go to our panel of witnesses i welcome everyone here today to the subcommittee hearing on aircraft icing and winter weather and at higher altitudes ice can accumulate on aircraft wing tail and other areas and can threaten the pilots ability to control the aircraft current regulations with the f a a require that an aircraft has no visible ice present on its wings to takeoff and be certified to fly in icing conditions if i see those present at the time of takeoff after the nine ninety four crash of a regional airliner in roselawn indiana which took sixty eight lives the national transportation safety board added i seen to it safety most wanted list in one nine hundred ninety seven since that time the board has issued eighty two recommendations to the f a a aimed at reducing risk from icing thirty nine were implemented by the f a a an acceptable progress was made on twenty five of them last october ranking member p held a roundtable on icing issues during the roundtable we discussed ice protection systems to prevent ice from forming on an aircraft in flight these systems may not protect and all i seen conditions such as super cool large droplets in addition we discussed the current status of aircraft i seen standards and procedures because aviation safety is the number one priority of this subcommittee we decided to hold a follow up airing to fully explore these important issues many challenges exist regarding aircraft icing such as access to accurate weather information and the need for additional icing related research i would like to focus on the issues of pilot training to operate in in flight it is also the pilot's responsibility to deploy the aircraft's ice protection system currently i c must be covered in a commercial pilot's initial and recruitment training it is critical that this training be specific to the airplane the pilot is flying in the conditions the pilot is likely to encounter to address these concerns and raise the bar on safety we included important icing related requirements and h r thirty three seventy one line safety improvement act of two thousand and nine to ensure commercial pilots have the experience and knowledge to fly safely and icing conditions i look forward to hearing from the airline pilots association and the f a a on what needs to be done to provide pilots with better defined operating procedures for operations and i seen and whether when or weather conditions second it has been thirteen years since a commercial air carrier was involved in a fatal icing related accident however between one nine hundred ninety eight and two thousand and seven there were five hundred twenty three i seen related to aviation accidents involving small commerce operators and general aviation aircraft resulting in two hundred twenty conducting additional research on i seen in partnership with the nasa despite the f a s work today two critical n t s b recommendations from the one nine hundred ninety seven most wanted list have not been addressed last week the n t s b adopted its most wanted list for twenty ten which includes four recommendations to reduce the hazards to aircraft flying in icing conditions the n t s b said that the efforts in this area have been quote unacceptably slow and of quote and i agree the length of time that it has taken to complete these icing rules is unacceptable i understand the deliberative nature of the f a a is rule making process and that even more research may need to be made but may be needed in this area however thirteen years have passed since the n t s b made these recommendations to change the way aircraft are designed and approved for flight in icing conditions these recommendations are still open with unacceptable responses must adopt a systematic and proactive approach to address the icing criteria for aircraft certification and testing i look forward to hearing from mr hickey on the steps the agency is taking to finish related rules as soon as possible i am also interested to hear from the g a o on research i requested regarding i scen any recommendations it may have on the topic before i recognize mr p try for his opening statement i ask unanimous consent to allow two weeks for all members to revise and extend their remarks and to permit submission of additional statements and materials by members and witnesses without objection so ordered the chair now recognizes the ranking member mr p dr well thank you mr chairman for calling this hearing as a follow up to the subcommittee roundtable on  last last fall at the roundtable we learned about the long awaited revisions to the regulations as well as the challenges associated with promulgating these regulations i'm interested in getting an update from the a on the status of the regulatory safety improvements roundtable participants also noted that more often than not pilot navigate through icy conditions without incident noted however that the to deal with icing conditions can lead to a sense of complacency about the dangers that icing can pose i like to hear from the airline pilots representative what steps unions are taking to instill continued vigilance in the cockpit in addition to addressing the in flight icing hazards the f a a airports and airlines all work hard to ensure that aircraft are ready to fly on that airport runways are maintained in between environmental concerns and aviation concerns and we clearly have to be sure that we are not endangering people lives as they fly  am interested to learn what impacts the proposed rule would have on airports and passengers obviously must be a careful balance between regulating the icing fluids and ensuring the safety and efficiency movement of passengers and commerce responsibly to ensure that a balance is maintained well airliners are required to be equipped with icing countermeasures most general aviation and commuter aircraft are not when these aircraft inadvertently encounter icing conditions the outcome can be disastrous for years we've heard testimony about the potential capacity and efficiency benefits of next gen and the chairman took the committee to the research center in new jersey recently for an update on some of the efforts that are being made in this in this area but i'm interested to hear how the enhanced weather information touted next gen plans might affect the icing safety record thank you all of you for your participation in this hearing today and i look forward to your testimony thank you very chair thanks the ranking member and will recognize members anyone has an opening statement or remarks i would like to make if not the chair will go directly to our witnesses today and let me introduce our witnesses first we have mr john tekkie who is a deputy associate administrator for the f a a for aviation safety and he will he is accompanied by mr john duncan who is the air transportation division manager for flight standards division at the f a a and the honorable deborah hersman who is the chairman of the national transportation safety board dr gerald dillingham was a director of physical infrastructure issues with the u s government accountability office mr king actually kept enrique the executive air safety committee chairman for the airline pilots association international and mr gregory principle who is the president of the airports council international in north america let me welcome all of our witnesses here today and we have normally a five minute rule that we try and ask witnesses to summarize their testimony in a five minute period and we want all of our witnesses to know that their entire statements will be entered into the record we understand that chairman hersman has power point that she will be presenting at some point and we of course look forward to that and with that the chair would recognize mr h thank you for inviting me here today to discuss the challenges icing conditions pose to flight operations as well as f a s efforts to mitigate the safety risks posed by icing before i begin my prepared remarks i want to introduce my colleague mr john duncan f a s manager of the flight standards air transportation division was accompanying me today the timing of this hearing is particularly appropriate in light of the recent reminder that a snowstorm can have a crippling effect on ground operations but while the accumulation of more than two feet of snow in washington area was on common aircraft operations and icing conditions are not in fact the conditions that can result in in flight aircraft icing are extremely common and can occur at any time of the year because icing conditions are so common we take the icing threat very seriously aggressively mitigating newly understood or discovered risks through immediate requirements for specific aircraft and advisory materials for operators once a potential risk is addressed we can focus our attention on conducting additional research to understand the science behind complex icing phenomena and developing comprehensive fleet wide solutions without compromising safety in the interim while the institutional standards set by our rule making are a cornerstone of our safety oversight regime many appear to measure the safety of the existing fleet soley by our rule making process this measure however creates a misperception about the standards we have set in the level of safety we have achieved for the existing fleet f a a has a myriad of tools available to intercede when safety risks are identified for example we address immediate icing safety concerns through the use of the airworthiness directives or a d s which carry the same force as a regulation we have the authority to issue eighty if we determine that some aspect of flying and icing conditions on a particular airplane model creates an unsafe condition we have been extremely aggressive in issuing a d s when needed issuing over two hundred are using related d s on over fifty different aircraft models covering safety issues ranging from design changes to crew operating procedures we also issued guidance to operate is to ensure that even if a design change is not appropriate for their particular aircraft that they have the information to make optimal decisions about icing operations in addition the f a a safety team publishes winter operations guidance and information on an annual basis these are just some of the examples of tools that we use to ensure the safety of aircraft operations while our research development and general rule making taken appropriate measured in deliberative tak i also want to clarify another misperception about our using program and in particular the supercooled large droplet or s l d rule making the misperception that somehow we have the answers early on but failed to act as i attempted to explain at the icing roundtable this subcommittee invited me to last october and again in my follow up correspondence in order to understand s l d we first had together then analyze  data to understand in flight s l d icing conditions at the round table it was suggested that the f a a completed its s o t research in the year two thousand but failed to undertake timely rulemaking unfortunately i was unable to clarify that miss the impression then but i would like to do so now in february one thousand nine hundred nine the f a a had gathered sufficient s l d raw data to move forward the data was then analyzed by nasa and environment canada this and that this analysis was not complete until october two thousand and one using this data the a racks are using group work to define the range of conditions in which we believe s o d conditions can occur what we call the s l d on velo although they they completed the majority but not all of the work to define the s l d icing on the low in december  thousand and two and continued to tune their findings on into two thousand and three but we had yet to determine the technical solutions that would allow aircraft to continue safe operation in s l d the development of technical solutions included determinations of how aircraft designers and manufacturers could comply with the solutions as well as test for compliance be a rock issued its first report in two thousand and five but the report was revised three times over the next four years as we continue to learn more about s l d and develop potential solutions after the a wrench third report we had enough detail advice in direction to move forward with rule making and we did just that and today i can tell you that this rulemaking is now in final executive coordination i'd like to conclude by highlighting the fact that the number of accidents attributed to the icing environment has been declining year after year for the last thirteen years although our work is ongoing the reduction in the number of accidents attributed to icing is a strong indicator that our actions have increased the level of due to in flight icing the airplane was equipped with a system of design to remove accumulated ice from the leading edge of the wing however the accident flight flew through clouds that contained super cooled large droplets for which the ice present protection system was not designed large water droplets caused ice to accumulate behind the d i scoots which could not be removed the ice accumulation disrupted the air flow in front of the  roll control in the airplane this animation shows the aircraft motion and control surfaces and the pilot's control will based on information obtained from the flight data recorder when the flaps highlighted in yellow retracted the loss of control was initiated soon afterwards the ailerons highlighted in red moved uncommanded to their maximum position as a result of the airflow disruption the airplane lost roll control and entered a deep dive from which it did not recover despite control inputs from the crew although this animation is rather old the issues identified in the investigation are still open supercooled large droplets or s l d is not a typical icing encounter but it needs to be considered certification in t s p investigations and industry research have demonstrated that s l d can cause serious aerodynamic problems it can accrete aft of the protective services and can cause stall or control problems at a much higher airspeed than expected in addition flight crews may not recognize an unsafe condition and take appropriate and timely action since the roselawn accident there have been other fatal accidents involving in flight icing which of the generated additional recommendations the one hundred ninety seven comair accident in monroe michigan was a part one twenty one fatal icing accident other accidents involving part one thirty five or ninety one operators have experienced in flight icing and resulted in fatal accidents this photos have been two thousand and five circuit city part ninety one corporate flight that encountered s l d and resulted in eight fatalities the safety board has issued broad recommendations about icing but we have also issued type specific recommendations when we identify a unique safety issue for example we've issued seven recommendations regarding cessna to avoid caravans following numerous in flight accidents and incidents the safety board is also concerned about serious incidents that have occurred and i think but have not resulted in fatalities or injuries these precursor events include ones like this watts of control event involving com aircraft near west palm beach that resulted in a seven thousand five hundred foot  loss and structural damage some incidents have involved encounters with s l d such as this event where the aircraft lost five thousand feet and was nearly inverted but the crew managed to recover the aircraft without injuries and substantial damage this shows an example of an air ambulance flight that experienced a loss of control due to ice on the wings during landing and resulted in structural damage to the aircraft wing currently the n fifteen open recommendations regarding in flight icing of these four comprise icing issue on our most wanted list the safety board is concerned about the slow pace of the essays response to these recommendations operation in icing conditions recently the f a a has issued final rules regarding aircraft certification for flight and icing conditions and ice protection aeration for part twenty five airplanes additionally and n p r m for in service airplane operation was issued in two thousand and nine these are all positive safety improvements that address the intent of our safety recommendation however the f a a has not yet adequately addressed three  areas more than a decade after the recommendations were issued including consideration of f l d n certification applying these revised standards to all airplanes currently certificate for flight and icing conditions and requiring  equipped airplanes to operate the ice as soon as the airplane interest icing conditions this concludes my presentation i'd be pleased to answer questions i committee in the senate commerce science and transportation committee g a o was asked to provide the committee for the information in three areas first the extent to which aircraft are been involved in accidents and incidents related to icing and when  whether operations second the nature and extent of f a a and other aviation stakeholders efforts to improve safety and third the issues that should be the focus of future efforts to improve safety in icing and when are operating conditions regarding the scope of the problem overall during the last twelve years they have been only six isolated accidents involving large commercial aircraft in the united states none of these were fatal during that same period there was slightly more than five hundred icing and went to related accidents involving small commercial aircraft and general aviation these accidents resulted in slightly more than two hundred fatalities the overwhelming majok r t o which involved privately operated and ga type aircraft as accident data for the last several years clearly shows very few large commercial aircraft are involved in icing related accidents yet incident data show that aircraft icing and winter weather operations remain a significant safety risk according to some aviation experts aviation incidents are potential indicators or precursors of aviation accidents f a's incident database contains about two related incident reports for large commercial carriers for that same time period this database includes reports by pilots controllers ground personnel and others these reports side override to safety issues including problems relating to runway runways contaminated by snow or ice ground the icing problems and in flight icing encounters this brings us to our second issue namely the nature and the and extent of efforts by aviation stakeholders to improve safety in icing and other operating conditions in our written statement we have done a fire a wide range of activities and initiative that aviation stakeholders have undertaken f a a has developed standards rules and regulations and monitored airlines compliance with them in addition f a a has supported research and development much of it in partnership with nasa and with the private sector f a a has also provided over two hundred million in airport improvement program funding for airport the icing facilities and equipment aircraft manufacturers can train to increase the sophistication of their aircraft and their operation capabilities and icing and wonder whether through automation and redundancy and safety systems airlines pilots and ground personnel continue to meet various types of initial and recurrent training requirements these training requirements are increasingly being met through the use of simulators which incorporate sophisticated technologies that can represent a wide range of conditions despite these efforts and progress the focus going forward needs to be on continuous improvement to further mitigate the safety risk associated with icing and when a weather operations i work as it in a five five areas in which continued efforts could reduce risk and improve safety first f a a needs to continue its current efforts to improve the time minutes and efficiency of the rule making process including the completion of long standing icing related rule makings second adequate resources are needed to support room making and form the basis of technological improvements third f a a and airlines must ensure that the training pilots receive is thorough relevant and realistic for example pilots who are assigned to fly missions in different geographic areas may face unfamiliar when or weather conditions and may need region specific training b recurrent training to cover the missions and prepare them for those conditions for more timely and accurate weather information is critical to reducing safety risk associated with winter weather operations finally f a a recognizes that icing and winter weather operations is a multidimensional issue and is working to develop an integrated oversight approach this initiative could be expedited mr chairman if further issues arise from this hearing otherwise g a o stands ready to further assist subcommittee with his work in this area thank you mr chairman thank you dr dillingham the chair now recognizes captain case good afternoon and thank you for inviting alpha to testify before this committee over the span of seventy nine years output has been a part of nearly every significant safety and security improvement in the airline industry today we run the largest nongovernmental aviation safety organization in the world professional airline pilots fly a vast range of aircraft types in all sorts of weather conditions including icing alpha has long been an advocate for improving graft operations in icing conditions both in the air and on the ground primarily because of the guesswork still inherent in these procedures allow me to explain when pilots fly into icing conditions all they truly know is that they are in a situation that may be hazardous with little more than experience as a guide pilots must attempt to determine exactly the conditions in which they are flying evaluate at craft as designed to handle those conditions and to determine what actions to take to safely continue the flight making such critical decisions is not unusual for an airline pilot but in this environment pilots still face the dial emma of making that decision without defined parameters for operating in icing conditions or without the information they need to properly determine the risk the bottom line our pilots need to know in real time and with certainty what type of icing conditions they're entering what effect the icing is having on the specific act or off their flying and how to avoid areas of severe icing altogether while the airline industry has made some progress in this area the variable nature of icing makes a stablish in norms and limits for standard operations difficult but nevertheless critical icing guidance to pilots is frequently general in nature and inconsistent from airline to airline i have included examples of this in my written testimony manufacturers flight testing evaluate specific sets of conditions but cannot duplicate every possible situation that may be encountered in actual operations in daily service pilots must fill in the information divide between icing flight conditions tested during development and the actual conditions that they encounter alpha continues its call for more comprehensive certification methods that require either additional testing or better simulations of icing conditions that set clear limitations on icing operations the evaluation of these conditions should occur in the design and certification process not on a revenue flight in reality a pilot's own training and flight experience in icing may be the primary or even the only means of determining how a specific aircraft flight handling characteristics might deteriorate in icing therefore alpa strongly believes that airliners should be equipped with the means to provide pilots with specific information about the type of icing and the rate of accumulation these systems would not only alert the flight crew but when supported with robust procedural guidance would clearly define the actions needed to maintain a safe level of operation while consistent standards and technology upgrades would improve safety in icing tremendously we must also consider the need for technologies that allow pilots to avoid entering hazardous icing conditions in the first place similar to avoiding thunderstorms pilots need a combination of onboard equipment training and weather forecasting technologies to navigate around severe icing areas there is limited use logics better mental of these technologies and manufacturers of developing updated products that deliver real time weather information to pilots in the cockpit alpha strongly supports the adoption of these tools and urges the f a a to can encourage broader use of new weather forecasting technologies to improve the safety of airliner operations arming pilots with the hard data they need to make critical informed decisions will dramatically improve operations in icing conditions with german costello congressman pete tri members of the subcommittee on behalf of all the members of airports council international north america thank you for allowing me to testify this afternoon and first let me discuss the difference between the airplane the icing in air field the icing airplane the icing of course is conducted to ensure the critical aerodynamic surfaces are free of contaminants that can compromise flight performance while airfield the icing is conducted to improve the quality of runway surface conditions and ensure adequate airplane braking performance on snow and ice contaminated surfaces airplane the icing is performed by airlines or their handling agents to ensure compliance with f a a regulations although airports play a role in assisting airlines the primary responsibility for this the icing lies with the individual airlines maintaining runway and air field pavement surfaces unsafe conditions and reporting on the conditions is the responsibility of airport operators under f a a requirements field pavement the icing has become a critically important tool for safe airplane operations during winter storms if this was not done snow and ice removal would be significantly slower potentially resulting in more delayed and diverted flights snow removal procedures at airports require significant coordination between airport operations personnel airlines fixed base operators f a a air traffic control and other concerned parties which is why airport snow removal plans are developed far in advance of the winter storm season to give some sense of the level of effort involved during a typical snowstorm one large northeastern airport uses a crew of thirty people eleven multifunction units costing eight hundred thousand dollars apiece to a large runway brooms five twenty seven foot pusher plows for rollover plo ten forty five hundred tons per hour snow blowers which could have been used on my street a couple of weeks ago and various friends and loaders and miscellaneous equipment to clear four point six million square feet of runway and five point seven million square feet of non tenured apron that's just a one north eastern airport even though the airlines are responsible for airplane the icing airport operators are often the permit holders for stormwater discharge meaning that airports are responsible for the collection and recycling of the icing storm water runoff airplane the icing operations and the collection of runoff vary from airport to airport some airports you centralized the icing pads which are like car washes for all the icing efforts at other airports the icing takes place at the gate at others on taxiways or cargo aprons regardless airports have run off collection procedures and are required to comply with local state and federal requirements in august the e p a issued a proposed rule for the icing discharges a c i north america has great concerns with the proposal including the negative impact it will have an airfield ground operations and efficiency without any real safety benefit members of the subcommittee i want to make it clear that airports follow all clean water act requirements with regard to the collection of storm water runoff we are committed to higher environmental standards even though we may disagree with the particulars of e p a s current proposal on friday we expect to submit substantial comments to the e p a that will address our concerns as well as offer possible alternatives that should be considered i will send a copy of our comments to the to the committee and work with the staff on this issue on a final note allow me once again to thank you for your efforts to get an f a a reauthorization bill passed and signed into law we can all agree that eight is  enough extensions are enough we have to make that if the e p a for example were to finalize this rule it would cost the airport industry alone hundreds of millions of dollars without an increase in the passenger facility charge limit like the one you proposed in h r nine fifteen i really don't know how we'll financially comply with that regulation again thank you and i look forward to your questions and to working with you on this important issue chair thank you and i am told earlier this afternoon  that senator reid has said that they intend to take up the reauthorization bill sometime during the month of march so i hope that's true we heard that before and it didn't hold but we are hopeful let me a recommendation to be included on the list another words why did you choose put the specific items on the most wanted list this year as opposed to some other items that could have been included too slowly or most important or deserves some special attention or maybe by putting them on our most wanted list we could push them to act on those issues and so we use our most wanted list really to highlight the things that we think have the widest safety benefit and clearly there are many issues that could be on the most wanted list and missing many i think recommendations that could be on there but these are the four that we think are the most important second conditions do you believe that they have the necessary research available yes we do we understand we first issued these recommendations that some research may have needed to be conducted we think the research that f a a and nasa conducted is good sound research and i think the challenge here is there's always more that could be learned or more that can be done but at some point they have got to pull the trigger and make the decision to move ahead with these rule making activities we haven't even gotten to the point where we've seen a notice of proposed rule making it's been thirteen years since we issued the recommendations we know that the rule making process will take many more years before it's completed and we believe that it's proceeding too slowly and they need to move forward dr dillingham would same question do you believe that the necessary research at this point chairman it's hard for us to say whether they have the necessary research we certainly in the course of doing our work have talked to nasa and to f a a and they indicate that the research that was needed at least early on has been completed and we we followed up to try and understand what was taking so long at this point in time and we're still trying to get clarity on that once once i say they've had they have the research they need you would agree with chairman hersman though that you know you can continue your research forever at some point in time you have to pull the the research that is available and dr dillingham comments as well yes mr chairman first of all let me say i empathize and actually agree with all the comments made regarding the length of time on rulemaking for those of us in the f a a and any other agency that are involved in rule making we understand the frustration all of us have on the length of time in the case of s l d we have pulled the trigger on rule making we have initiated rulemaking we're in the process of doing that i perhaps may respectfully disagree with the chairman about chairman hersman about when we were ready to pull the trigger on the on the research data while we had some of the raw data early on it's not with that data to turn it into a regulation such that designers can comply with with the proper angulo like the appendix c so i think we've taken the time to get that but but what is very important to understand is if you reflect back on my opening remarks what gives us or affords us the opportunity to get it right on the rule is the actions we've taken as part of the two hundred airworthiness directives general rule making is largely in institutionalizing of actions already taken by the agency and i think where we're not accurately gauging the actual level of safety even without the s l d rules i think we have to account for all the eighty's that we've issued and it provides for a very safe environment for airplanes to avoid s l t conditions when do you period so i would be looking at late two thousand and eleven mr vickie you as you'll recall you sent me a letter on november sixteenth of two thousand and nine and you indicated to that same question  it would be done in january of two thousand and ten and you're saying now that is late this year mr chairman if i can respectfully disagree i believe my comments in that roundtable where the spring of two thousand and ten when the spring of two thousand and ten so we will find the exact  that now that instead of january two thousand and ten you're talking late this year twenty one not sure i'm suggesting the spring of two thousand and ten has left the agency it's an executive coordination right now so in april or may of this year we element involved the accidents and incidents related to icing with but also larger carriers has to do with the availability and quality of weather information  situation so far as operable in information about the conditions through the implementation of next general it is our understanding based on the work that we are doing for this subcommittee as well as others focusing on next that indeed whether providing better more accurate more time their information is a critical component of in i mean as you know for flights in general or schedules in general up to seventy percent of the sort of delays and cancellations and diversions are associated with weather so it is our understanding that better weather information is is a key part of the development of next general i think we were up at the research center and it was my impression that they there may be technology already but that each plane may be a little reporting station on the conditions of the space that it's going through and that could be fed into the system well that technology may already exist it's if it's a separate deployment it's more expensive than if it's part of a next gen system and that that clearly could give people extra margin of safety because they could avoid particular they right and if it's not done right the airport operators hands can be tied and it could have a lot of implications for costs and for safety they just have to be safe for the flights that can could can go forward because you might not be able to d i s could you expand on that and what your solutions are i know you said you have a written statement for us but we just highlights how you can all local federal and state requirements including the clean water act so we're doing that and we're always looking for ways to do a better job of of a mitigating environmental impacts and so we certainly share the p a s goals of improving the  environmental performance the concerns we really have in the comments are being finalized they are due on friday we'll work with the staff here and share them with the staff on the members of the of the subcommittee  but the main concerns we have i guess around a couple of areas number one if you look at if you look at denver and you look at la guardia denver is an airport with a footprint of fifty four square miles regarded as an airport but the footprint of about a footprint  not much more than but not much more than that and we were concerned that the rule would treat those two airports and in too much as in too much of an identical matter that it doesn't fully take into account the differences in airports where the size differences or or some of the other things that i use denver and like warranty i keep coming back to that if you look at those two airports and see the differences in those places and we believe the rule does not adequately take some of those differences into account with regard to how aircraft would have to be d i asked him what would have to be done with the runoff and so forth and so we're going to bring some suggestions on dealing with that and our second concern is we don't believe that the the cost estimates on the rule adequately take into account the operational costs of the rule whether it's the air operation of the airport whether it's the operation of the of the aircraft out there on the airfield and we think it'll it'll lead to a lot of inefficiencies and so forth add to the cost without the environmental benefit that you might add may or may not add but would not be could be added for a much lower cost so if those two things it doesn't adequately take into account the differences in members of my association who are operating at the smaller ones they concur with that as well that's been the lodge improvement in the way that winter has an operations have been dealt with by the airports and by the airlines and the sub contractor just curiosity how long is that the icing last you get the ice to the gate to the taxi and wait in line and what's what your time element would just kind of what's the kind of the congressman tom allen if you will i'm sorry and comment about devitt if you will well supercooled large droplets are in some ways what the word large means they are very very large droplets largest size than we have previously assumed was very typical and icing conditions and when they form they sometimes form on the airplane in freezing create ice shapes beyond what most airplanes or a number of airplanes are certified to handle and so they ultimately create a shape on the air on the wing which changes the fundamental ability of the wing to provide lift in speed and no doubt present a greater hazard threat yes it is a greater hazard and threat than our current certification standards issues no no congressman coble and that's one of the reasons why we placed it on our most wanted list of transportation safety improvements we have an icing issue area and we believe that the f a a needs needs to take action and three specific areas one is to expand the certification  include s l d and rashaun if you could pull that slide up for us to show the s l t conditions and the second is to make sure the certification standards apply to all aircraft in service and the third is to make sure whenever sip and you'll see the areas in red indicate and i've also provided a little handout this is current this is real time and this is why this is the s l d threat the areas shaded in red and so you'll see yes there are some in the northeast but there's also some off the coast of florida too and so while this is considered to be a rare event i think the exposure ninety nine times out of one hundred being exposed to a icing event it may not be s l d but if you're on the aircraft that's that one out of one hundred that's getting into s l d you want to make sure the aircraft is certified for those conditions and the pilots know what to do  how how the rule is finally implemented and what the what the regulations are it would cost it could cost airport additional funds to develop the the proper facilities to do this and to take care of the runoff it could it could in fact slow down and also increase delays with regard to traffic moving as well so until we know what the final rule is i mean the routinely deal with icing conditions could lead to a sense of complacency about the dangers that i still can pose a do you agree with that analysis and  complacent at all it's meteorology is a very inexact science and so you're dealing with variables all day and night long we with the association my association takes  very very seriously we're looking forward to a real coming out on icing but our biggest concern is training of the pilots right now we want to have the best possible training available i've spoken about this on other areas in aviation i'm deeply concerned about the reduced training footprints that airlines are now applying to that pilots whether it's avenue when they first join an airline or go to a new plane or whether it's recurrent training i'm deeply concerned about how much we've chipped away at what gets discussed when a pilot shows up in a training center so this would be very much high on my list for pushing better and greater training and having a greater awareness simulator sitting in a hot dry room to replicate weather conditions we can we can simulate many things for a pilot to deal with but nothing beats good training and good fundamental understanding in the first place of what it  captain k i'm glad you just spoke about training from battle creek michigan western michigan university's college of aviation is located there in my district at kellogg airport  it sounds like from your comments there is a certain amount of art as well as science and maybe what that really means is experience and experience and training really matter  so i was going to ask you to talk a little bit more about the tools that pilots need to make those critical decisions you comment that they that those tools haven't yet been fully developed can have that picture up on the wall that just now in my cockpit starting point i don't have access to that one right that what we have access to cockpits is very limited we have example on board equipment consists of an icing detector on many of these aircraft and it gives me one simple message ice i mean it's on or it's off it doesn't give me any about how creating on the aircraft whether it's icing that's just forming along the leading edge of the wing which is undesirable but not horrible or whether it's super cold water droplets that are flowing back across the effort and those are a huge problem for us the ones that really start to impact us flying so i want information i want training in the first place as we've talked about especially at that i've been issue stage but in the plane and the operation i want all the technologies available to me to allow me to make the best possible decisions i don't want to wait until i'm in that weather and i'm becoming a test pilot and my passengers behind me becoming passengers along for that ride so information is what we need we need we need the basic education in the first place how to apply procedures that are laid out for us through the f a a and through the through the companies and the manufacturers but once we're actually in the operation need that information flow coming curiously enough a lot of times in the best information i get is from an airplane ahead of me a pirate a pilot report that means he's in it and he doesn't like it because he's making a pilot report you know he's concerned enough that it needs to be passed back that's what i want to start i don't want to see us having to get into this you know moderate or severe icing to the point where we're concerned enough we need to pass it back i'd like to find a day where we can avoid that altogether thank you it sounds like technology is a major area of exploration and research  i don't know if the technology exists to do what you're suggesting or whether it just needs to be incorporated on the aircraft but the technology is evolving that would give me some on better on board information without having to rely on other a making pilot reports but i'm i'm very big on the basic education when the you know when a pilot decides to be a pilot that there is a there is a level playing field of information that is being required for a pilot to participate and l college in my district is in the northern climate there may be training opportunities there they're flying year round probably three hundred sixty days a year or so in our conditions so there may be some some opportunities in their training pilots for commercial aviation are there limits to communications to folks on the ground to talk about weather conditions to provide that information to pilots conduct of that flight and once they're aware of hazardous weather conditions they obviously have to pass that along to us and then of course of the air traffic controller and the information they have in front of them when they're trying to get a flight you go on to expand and i guess my question is what has the f a a done to number one ensure that commercial pilots receive proper training especially regarding  start by saying that training is a cumulative thing for pilots it starts at the private pilot level particularly in regard to dealing with meteorological conditions including icing and it progressed through the commercial pilot certificate through an instrument rating through an airline transport pilot certificate by the time they get to an air carrier they are dealing with specific meteorological logical conditions that deal with the environment that they're going to be operating in as well as the  specific requirements and procedures of the carrier that they're working with as well as the specifics related to the type of aircraft that they're flying in terms of tools available to them we the the chart that you just saw is one of the tools that's been developed over time and we're still working on additional tools i'll say also that that in some ga aircraft that that  chart is available in flight along with a lot of other weather information like that we also agree that this is a continuous improvement process and we're fully engaged in continuing to improve the tools that are available we behind my arms when i'm sitting in the cockpit of a plane i simply i can't even see my wings i can't just take a walk back and look at my wings and see if they're icing up so we have procedures that we fly into cloud we look at what the total air temperature is and we switch on our engine c but if we're trying to determine how much ice we're getting we very scientifically lean forward and look at the windshield wiper blade and there's a big bolt that holds that home to the rest of the airplane and that is my very scientific device at the moment for telling me how much i'm getting and how fast it's creating and so we spent a lot of time studying that windshield wiper bulb so i think we can do better than that the chair now recognizes the gentle lady california  richards thank you mr chairman hirschman first of all i think you got the lucky draw from what i can tell of coming to our committee versus the one down the hall so we're glad that you're here i thought it was interesting when captain kay was talking about his not having this type of information readily available during flight you kind of looked over i'm a little surprised why would you say that they would not have access i could see that preflight as a person is preparing information but clearly a full flight is five hours four hours a lot can change from when you're doing your preflight preparation to when you're actually flying so why would we not have this information available for our pilots real time it's my understanding they many of them have laptops you know different means to be able to collect this information i would say that it's probably limited by whatever technology is available in the aircraft the safety board has made many recommendations c f a over the years about having better information more current information and fact we made recommendations just in the colgan investigation even though that was not considered an icing accident we found that the crew in that accident did not have the current information about icing that was provided to them by their dispatch and so  we think it's important for them to have information before they get in the cockpit make sure that information is understandable and it's not part of a forty page packet that's confusing and hard to find what's important in there as far as having in flight information we think that's very important to that happens by other pilot reports but i think that what captain kaye pointed out is if you're the first pilot to go into that area you may not get that information but it's also depending on you their size of your aircraft how him how helpful that mission is to you if captain k is going and he's flying a seven forty seven through the same cloud that i'm going to be going through with a small turbo prop my experience he might have light to moderate what my experience might moderate to severe just because of the size of my aircraft and so it is a it is a challenge our recommendations focus on making sure the aircraft is certified to operate in all i think conditions and that the pilots know how to handle it or exit when they when they encounter it but didn't mr kay just testify that he may not always know at what point the soonest point that he would need to do that and we agree we think it's very challenging i think the question then if he agrees then doesn't the question go back to you that if he may not necessarily know it will point to activate it and someone else has the information why aren't you ensuring the f a a is in fact putting the systems in place to ensure that they know maybe you want to ask the f a a about question well but with you being the safety board if there is one thing that i think we're learning through the process is isn't your role that from a basic of safety to ensure that things are not safe and in this instance of what we're referring it actually cost lives don't you also have a responsibility to urge more than just the recommendations the core group say something to this committee or the congress is charged with investigating accidents and may correct making recommendations we've issued recommendations that's one of the reasons why our most wanted list have been on it because we believe this issue does need to be addressed because so what happened in if you could just sum up and then i'm going to ask mr hickey but at what point if it's not being addressed do you step forward in a more aggressive fashion to ensure that whatever means if it's  a is not implementing it to come to congress for oversight at some point maybe you've got to do a little bit more and i think in this instance it was probably would have been more helpful we would certainly you all have our  reauthorization in front of you right now if you think there are things that we need to do i know that people get frustrated because our recommendations don't require change we make the recommendations it's up to others to implement them using our most wanted list to highlight issues and certainly testifying before this committee is one way to advance those issues you all have in fact been the ones to require our recommendations to be implemented when we have not met with success ok so mr hickey and i'm now down to twenty six seconds do you view the recommendations from the n t s b is just kind of paper that you have there or at what point w see that this is a serious problem what gets you guys to the point to actually do something we take the n t s b recommendations very seriously right but in this case there have been recommendations and they were not in fact  implemented they may not be implemented yet i think a lot of what we're talking about now could be enhanced by advanced technology that are really on the cost but it's coming down the road so do you guys have a commitment to implement this technology in light of what's happen live in michigan but just just a few questions just from observing it in flying twice weekly at a minimum in commercial airliners the i've always thought that the dia procedures at the airport are really quite inefficient and they have improved quite a bit in the last few years in the process but  mr principle out of maybe you can give me some idea of would it make sense to just at the end of the runway have essentially what looks like a car wash took so long to take off study should have been the eyes to get but it wasn't and crashed into the river it seems to me the best place to d s is right at the end of the runway before the plane enters the runway  question and what she thanked us to find that the current procedures that he as colleagues go through with their aircraft actually works very well at airports large and small is obviously as optimal to take office in as possible after d i there are places where you can put it the icing pad closer to the runway and you know geographically there are places where that just doesn't make any sense for geographic reasons or whatever think about i said earlier to some of your colleagues you think about denver and the guardia both large of airports very very different and denver has the icing pad you go out and do it and go out and take off and you don't you don't have the footprint for that kind of thing so you have to come up with a different a different approach and you know obviously your own state of michigan with which i'm i'm well familiar you have you know lansing grand rapids and kalamazoo and and detroit in flames and all the airports that are up there and when we battle creek out and when all the airports that are up there they're all very different and so i think the airports working with the airlines and everybody else tries to find the best most efficient way to get this done in the safest manner possible so that the aircraft can get off the ground  as quickly as possible after it's the ice then then you know of course back on the ground and at the airport operator living up to its environmental commitments and dealing with the runoff and so forth but you know i said before there are some places where it makes sense to put it out put it out in a remote area like that on the way to the runway there are some places where it just doesn't and you have to find another way i think airports and airlines have worked pretty well together on that again think of denver and they've already in your mind as you're looking at two places our comments will be submitted on friday and we can work with you and your staff on that our concern you know again is that they're looking at and they're assuming what you're able to do in denver with a lot of a lot of area and so forth would be just as cost efficient to do a lot of other places where it just wouldn't be and we also think that they're not really taking fully into account the operational costs of some of these new requirements and so we want to we want to work with them to try to find a way to what you know at the end of the day improve the environmental performance we don't we're not going to just go in and say no we're going to have some suggestions and alternatives around or we're working up and we'll be sitting down with them on but you know w are concerned that they're madly underestimating the cost i don't think they're really counting the operational costs at all and what they're looking at doing and i think they're making assumptions based on what's happened at places like denver where you have a lot more options  and then you know you like said before you look at other airports you don't have so many options and it's more costly to do some of these things question for cabin image and the difficulty determining whether it's in the plane what about when the plane is sitting on the ground before the is or any way to detect how much of a problem there is on the wings at that point it's it's that's a that's a good question try and keep it the  anything reforming that the biggest becomes when you are dealing with continuous snow or freezing precipitation falling and that's when you have to apply what's referred to as an  and possibly really accumulating once what is called the hold over time is finished you buy some time when you put the icing on this time for empty icing fluid and it depends on the temperature and the precipitation that is falling and we go into a little what's called a hold of a chart to determine once they finish the d i seeing how long we've gone before we need to be on to we have to determine before we get airborne if that fluid has failed think the gentleman from michigan the gentle lady from california i think had a very quick question and a brief answer from our witness thank you mr chairman mr kay in your testimony you stated that the captain's authority to fly or not fly i pilots feel that way understand that last mr duncan who has previous experience ultimately it's the responsibility of the pilot in command there are a number  of there are a number of different ever your carry has different procedures for dealing with that question and have been called and said here you have a pilot here who says in this testimony that's not necessarily consistent are you willing to commit to this committee that you will reevaluate how the pilots are communicated that that is ultimately their authority and what they can do in this case we in fact are constantly looking at those kinds of questions and from my february thirteenth of last year just updated their fact during this hearing let me thank our witnesses for appearing here today i think it's been a very informative hearing i would refer you back to the letter that you sent me on november sixteenth in the timeline in january of two thousand and ten and it is spring so i would just ask that you do everything you possibly can