The USA's most comprehensive airline safety overhaul will hit commuter airlines with millions of dollars in training and operation costs, experts say.
Transportation Secretary Federico Pena has ordered the Federal Aviation Administration to speed new rules by March 24 - two months early - setting equal safety standards for commuter and large airlines.
The push, coming after this week's American Eagle crash near Raleigh, N.C., killed 15, would raise commuter crew training hours, limit pilot flying time, and audit safety programs of every airline.
The new standards, which should be final by late 1995, mean the FAA will:
-- Re-certify every carrier that flies 10- to 30-seat planes.
-- Require more commuter crew training starting in 1996. This will affect 3,400 workers and add up to $35.7 million in costs over nine years.
-- Require resource management training for every airline to improve communication and coordination among crew members and between crew and ground workers. Cost: up to $616 million over 10 years - of which the smaller-staffed commuter airlines would pay up to $12 million.
-- Audit every airline's safety inspection and maintenance programs, training, day-to-day operations, and types of equipment.
Aviation expert John Nance says raising safety requirements of companies operating 10- to 30-seat planes - and carrying 50 million passengers yearly - is long overdue.
"This should've been done in 1978 with deregulation," Nance says.
"When you surrender your body to an airline, it is blind trust."
Because many commuters operate under the umbrella of major airlines, the public often assumes - incorrectly - the smaller planes fall under the same standards.
In making standards equal, the focus has been largely on training. But commuter pilots balk at the notion that they're ill-prepared.
"The fellow that flies a 747 flies under the same license that I fly in a 19-seat airplane. There's no difference in our basic training," says pilot David Campo, who works for a Detroit-based regional airline and has 25 years of experience.
Campo says it's not fair to blame training, since the FAA signs off on every commuter airlines' training program. "Our problem really is how much we fly."
A typical two-day commuter crew schedule is like this:
The crew reports to the airport at 8:30 a.m., flies seven hops between three or four cities, returns at 9:35 p.m. and goes off-duty by 9:50.
The crew reports back to work the next day by 6:50 a.m. for a 7:20 a.m. takeoff. It flies seven more legs, returning to the home airport at 6:10 p.m.
Because commuter pilots earn lower salaries - between $18,000 and $48,000 a year, compared to major airline pilots who begin at $25,000 and go up to $200,000 - many work the maximum hours or have second jobs, Campo says.
"Commuters are a training ground for the big carriers," adds Dave Parent, who was an American Eagle pilot until 1992. "They don't pay well enough, and they don't train enough."
Though American Eagle uses the higher training and safety standards of parent American Airlines, not all commuters do, says Parent, who flew a 36-passenger craft between Washington and Boston.
"No one really appreciates that we were operating in a very, very high-threat environment," he says.
Smaller planes fly between ground level and 10,000 feet, a high-traffic zone.
And unlike big jets, which take longer flights across regions, "we add dealing with bad weather, we're operating in it the entire flight, with six to eight takeoffs and landings."
How pilots cope with engine failure
Pilots of the American Eagle Jetstream that went down near Raleigh-Durham, N.C., Tuesday reported that one of two engines failed as the plane approached the airport. While the cause of the accident has not been determined, here's how engine failure of the left engine, for example, can lead to a crash:
1) Drag (air resistance) from windmilling propeller pushes that engine backward. 2) Plane's nose swings, or yaws, toward failed engine. 3) Increased air flow over wing of working engine causes plane to bank.
The Jetstream's flight data recorder shows the plane turned sharply toward the left in the 30 seconds before crashing.
What the pilot can do Pilot can use rudder to counteract yaw unless plane slows too much.
Jetstream was approaching at slower than usual speed, but still within safe range.
No matter what the cause of the crash, the Jetstream's pilot somehow kept the plane from rolling over and nosing down.
