July 31--A bill to improve safety and pilot training requirements is on its way to President Obama for his signature.
The Airline Safety and Federal Aviation Administration Extension Act of 2010, sponsored by Rep. Jim Oberstar, D-Minn., passed the House on a voice vote Thursday. The Senate passed the bill on a voice vote Friday morning.
"We're going to put this legislation in the extension so it gets signed into law, and we can start improving the training of pilots on regional airlines," Oberstar said before the Senate vote. "This is the culmination of the work I started after the Northwest Airlink Crash in Hibbing 16 years ago. It's long overdue."
In what remains the worst air disaster in state history, Northwest Airlink Flight 5719 crashed as it descended to land on Dec. 1, 1993, killing all 18 people on board. The flight was operated by regional airline Express Airlines II. The official cause of the crash was determined to be lack of crew coordination and loss of awareness of the altitude during a night instrument landing through bad weather.
Earlier this month, family and friends of passengers who died last year when a regional airliner crashed on a snowy night in Buffalo, N.Y., visited the Northland to press for tighter regional airline regulations. They said their situation was "eerily similar" to the 1993 Hibbing crash.
On Feb. 12, 2009, a Bombardier DHC8 operated by Colgan Air as Continental Flight 3407 departed late from Newark, N.J., and crashed into a house about five miles from the
Buffalo airport. The two pilots, two flight attendants, 45 passengers and one person in the house died.
The National Transportation Safety Board determined the probable cause of the crash was the captain's inappropriate response to the activation of an anti-stall device. The NTSB also cited the flight crew's failure to adhere to cockpit procedures, the captain's failure to effectively manage the flight and Colgan Air's inadequate procedures for airspeed selection and management during approaches in icing conditions.
Key provisions of Oberstar's bill include:
--Requiring all airline pilots to hold an Airline Transport Pilot certificate, which requires a minimum of 1,500 flight hours; the current requirement is 250 flight hours.
--Directing the FAA to update and implement new flight and duty time rules for pilots within one year to more adequately address the results of scientific research in the field of fatigue.
--Requiring the FAA to ensure that pilots are trained on how to recover from stalls and upsets and that airlines provide remedial training to pilots who need it.
--Establishing a pilot records database to provide airlines with fast, electronic access to a pilot's comprehensive record.
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