Colgan Flight 3407 is a well known plane crash. Flight 3407 was coming into an approach for landing and then suddenly fell out of the sky, crashing into a house. Every time there is a crash an investigation is undergone.
The national geographic channel did a documentary about the investigation
Air Crash Investigation Colgan Flight 3407. After the investigation was complete they said that it was the lack of training and fatigue that caused this accident. Family members of the passengers who were killed were not satisfied with just figuring out why they have lost a loved one.
The family members made a stand and wanted something to change. Congress decided that the Federal Aviation Administration will make a regulation increasing the minimum flight hours required for airline pilot crew members from 250 to 1500. Although this sounds like a problem solved but inexperience was not the problem in this case. The name of the pilots were released along with their total flight hours on the
WIBV Channel 4 website.
Captain Marvin Renslowof (left)had a total of 3379 flight hours and his First Officer Rebecca Shaw (right) had a total of 2244 flight hours. The video went into detail and showed that these two pilots were talking about everything and anything, but flying the plane. The two pilots were both talking about how tired they were, promotion, and where they could work out of. These pilots are experienced but are not disciplined.
The plane fell out of the sky because it went into a stall. Correcting a stall is a basic procedure that is one of the first thing a student pilot learns. When a plane stalls the correct action is to increase power (throttle up) and nose down, to increase airspeed. The investigators found that when the stall warning sound came on the Captain did full throttle and pulled back on the yoke causing the nose to pitch up instead of pitching down. The First Officer followed her Captain and pulled back as well. This was an easily preventable accident that killed 44 passengers, 4 crew members and 1 person who was in the house. This is not due to lack of hours, since they both had way above the new required minimum hours. This is a lack of discipline and poor decision making that can not be trained or taught and especially not calculated by total of hours.
In memory of Flight 3407
It’s sad that human error can be so prevalent in our society, ranging from things like forgetting to turn off the stove, to accidents like the flight you wrote about. I guess that certain people have a natural ability to fly, just as some people are good musicians, and others are good dancers, or language learners. When people get their driving permits, they have a basic amount of time, or hours, needed in order to get their license. Like flying there are people who are unprepared to actually drive a vehicle, on their own after getting their license, and although there are many motor accidents everyday there hasn’t been much talk about changing our licensure system to reflect harsher demands. Do you think that increasing the number of flight hours has any benefit for future pilots, or do you think that there are more effective ways for ensuring pilot readiness?
ReplyDeleteHuman error will always be the leading factor in accidents whether it is flying a plane or driving a car. Increasing the number of flight hours will not decrease accidents because even the most experience pilots will make mistakes. It is not experience that can prevent accidents, it is proper decision making. Proper decision making is not something that can be taught. There are many safety programs to help pilots make better decisions but even pilots with plenty of flight hours will make a poor decision. There really is not a more effective way for ensuring pilot readiness other than monitoring pilot's decisions more closely and having a zero tolerance policy for safety violations.
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