Pilot Fatigue Discussed at NTSB Hearings

The afternoon hearings Wednesday at the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) were marked by witnesses who spoke of Colgan's compliance with federal safety regulations and pilot fatigue.

Daniel Morgan, Colgan Air Vice President of Flight Safety and Regulatory Compliance, spent nearly two hours on the stand speaking of the airlines' policies.  Continental Connection 3407 crashed en route from Newark to Buffalo on Feb. 12, killing all aboard and one person on the ground.  The aircraft was operated by Colgan Air which is linked to Continental Airlines,

Morgan was questioned by NTSB members about the 16-hour maximum duty day of pilots and he said it was an appropriate maximum for pilots.  NTSB Acting Chairman Mark Rosenker took exception to this comment and asked Morgan to fly a three-day schedule with Colgan flight crews and call him back to see if he found it fatiguing.

Morgan also talked about Colgan wanting to randomly monitor cockpit voice recordings from various flights to check if the cockpits are "sterile" as required by Colgan policy and Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regulations.  The cockpit voice recorder (CVR) from Flight 3407 provided evidence that this sterile cockpit rule was violated in the minutes prior to the crash, as admitted by Colgan Air officials.

An outside audit of Colgan's air safety program is underway, Morgan announced at the hearing, which began shortly after the crash near Buffalo, New York.

Importantly, it also was pointed out at the hearings that many speed and altitude deviations were reported by pilots as part of Colgan’s Aviation Safety Action Program (ASAP), a voluntary pilot safety reporting program.  Morgan said these deviations have been cleared up and attributed this phenomenon to pilot workload and monitoring issues in certain air traffic control (ATC) environments such as New York.

Douglas Lundgren, FAA Principal Operations Inspector (POI) for Colgan Air, also testified Wednesday afternoon and spoke of the agency's oversight of the airlines.  He said the Colgan Crew Flight Manual (CFM) for the Q400 airplane that crashed at Buffalo was not complete at t he time of the crash due to Colgan and FAA review cycles and Colgan workload.  Lundgren also said he wanted to see a more robust threat and error management program within Colgan’s crew resource management (CRM) training.  Threat and error management (TEM) programs use systems-oriented approaches to risk management.

Dr. Tom Nesthus of the FAA's Civil Aerospace Medical Institute in Oklahoma also took the stand and spoke of pilot fatigue, fatigue mitigation and the effect of fatigue on pilot performance.

He also told NTSB members about a new fatigue management program is being tested that will better pair crew members given their flight schedules and resting periods.

For further information, please call Clifford Law Offices' Communications Partner Pamela Menaker at 847-721-0909.