The flight crew’s crucial role in saving all 155 people aboard US Airways Flight 1549 after its Hudson River ditching should support the Federal Aviation Administration’s efforts to force airlines to step up flight crew training.
The FAA proposes major changes to pilot, flight attendant and aircraft dispatcher training programs in an effort to enhance commercial aviation safety.
With projected costs running into many tens of millions of dollars over the next few years, the proposed regulations released Jan 12 represents a sweeping effort by the FAA to improve the training programs currently used by U.S. air carriers.
After analyzing fatal/nonfatal aircraft accidents over the past two decades, the FAA said many of those crashes “could have been prevented if the proposed training initiatives” had been in place. Some of the proposed changes respond to long-standing safety recommendations from the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).
“NTSB investigations identified several areas of inadequate training that were the probable cause of an accident. During the 1985-2004 time period, the NTSB determined that inadequate training was the probable cause of 169 accidents,” the NPRM states.
The 689-page proposed rule requires airlines to supply “safety-critical” training to pilots, flight attendants and dispatchers, an action the agency says will make “a significant contribution” to its accident reduction goal.
“The proposed regulations will enhance traditional training programs by requiring the use of flight simulation training devices for flight crewmembers and additional training requirements in areas that are critical to flight safety.
“The primary purpose of this NPRM is to establish new requirements for traditional air carrier training programs to ensure that safety-critical training is included. These changes are expected to make a significant contribution to the FAA’s accident reduction goal,” the NPRM adds.
The rulemaking “is part of the FAA’s efforts to reduce fatal accidents in which human error was a major contributing cause. The proposed changes would reduce human error and improve performance among flight crewmembers, flight attendants, and aircraft dispatchers.”
Included in the NPRM are “special hazard” flight simulator training requirements for pilots to help with persistent loss-of-control (LOC) issues in the industry.
Also present is a requirement to demonstrate runway safety techniques such as ensuring the correct runway is selected for takeoff. As part of normal training, the FAA wants carriers to emphasize the dangers of runway collisions and other ground hazards.
The FAA is proposing the following safety improvements to its qualification and training requirements:
- Train and evaluate flight crewmembers in a complete flight crew environment.
- Require Line Oriented Flight Training (LOFT) to be administered to flight crewmembers in a full flight simulator (FFS) during recurrent training.
- Require the use of a qualified flight simulation training device (FSTD) for training, testing, and checking flight crewmembers.
- Require special hazard training for flight crewmembers, such as loss of control and Controlled Flight Into Terrain (CFIT).
- Require additional training and practice in the use of Crew Resource Management (CRM) principles.
Among the leading causes of fatal accidents for U.S. air carriers from 1987 through 1996 were loss of control and CFIT. Human error was identified as a major contributing cause in a large percentage of these accidents. The FAA took immediate steps toward preventing these types of accidents by developing technological standards and encouraging simulator training in CFIT avoidance and to improve flight crewmember response in loss of control situations.
The FAA also reviewed its regulations to identify improvements in training for flight crewmembers, flight attendants, and aircraft dispatchers. As part of the regulatory review, the FAA evaluated its experience with the Advanced Qualification Program (AQP) currently in place at many part 121 air carriers. AQP is an alternative method using advanced simulation equipment and objective performance standards for training and testing crewmembers. “The FAA’s review of AQP revealed the need to improve the traditional qualification and training programs.” The NPRM says.
In some areas, particularly relating to training of flight attendants and flight dispatchers, the proposal seeks to break new ground.
For dispatchers, the agency proposed mandating specific requirements for supervision; and the FAA wants to impose more stringent qualifications on airline employees in charge of training in this area.
For flight attendants, the new rules include “hands on” drills using emergency equipment annually versus the current two-year training period. It would also require cabin attendants to qualify for various aircraft types based on operating experience.
“These drills provide critical practice in the actions that flight attendants must take in an emergency. Emergency procedures, such as those required to prepare an airplane for an evacuation or a ditching, extinguish an in-flight fire, supervise the cabin following a decompression, handle a hijack situation, or manage passengers during an emergency evacuation, are rarely, if ever, used.
“Flight attendants must immediately change from passenger service oriented roles to their critical safety-related roles in an emergency. Emergency situations typically require quick, assertive, and decisive action with little time for analysis of the situation. For most flight attendants, the only opportunity to practice skills needed in an emergency is during Initial and Recurrent training. These skills are perishable, and continuing and effective training is essential for maintaining them,” the NPRM states.
The FAA is proposing additional hours for transition training. Transition training would allow a flight attendant to qualify on an aircraft type if the flight attendant has been qualified for at least 180 days and served in the previous 180 days on an aircraft as a flight attendant for that certificate holder. Under the proposal, the baseline programmed hours for transition training are 12 hours to ensure adequate training for flight attendants. The baseline may be reduced to a minimum of eight hours.
The proposed rule increases the requirements for flight attendants to complete operating experience on each aircraft type operated by the certificate holder prior to becoming qualified on that aircraft type. The proposed rule requires flight attendants to gain aircraft operating experience after completion of initial training for each aircraft type.
This is different from the current rule which only requires a flight attendant to complete operating experience on one aircraft type in Part 121 operations during the flight attendant’s career. “The proposal ensures that a flight attendant qualified on a large number of different aircraft types has more extensive training on each aircraft type than under the current rules,” said the FAA.
The proposed rule also requires that a person receive operating experience on each aircraft type for each certificate holder for whom the person is employed. “This requirement is necessary because flight attendant procedures can differ significantly between certificate holders, even for the same aircraft type,” the FAA believes.
The FAA projects saving of $500 million in accident and incident costs over a 10-year span.
U.S. air carriers will have four months to comment, and the new training regulations won’t kick in for five years.
“Setting the effective date for 120 days after publication of the final rule and allowing use of the existing regulations for five years after this period provides existing certificate holders and the FAA time to smoothly transition to the new requirements.
“By using this approach, certificate holders seeking FAA approval for a new training program will not have to develop one training program to comply with the old regulations, then develop another training program to comply with the new regulations,” the FAA reasons.