Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, June 20, 1993 TAG: 9306200100
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
But there was one bit of good fortune aboard the crippled DC-10: a seasoned crew with 70 years of combined military and civilian flight experience.
Using what pilots call "air sense" gained over thousands of flight hours, the crew improvised, using engine controls to wrestle the plane to a crash landing in Sioux City, Iowa.
While 112 died in the 1989 crash, another 184 lived. The National Transportation Safety Board credited the flight crew's "exquisite" performance with saving lives.
But the flight experience seen that day is fading fast in U.S. airline cockpits.
In one of the biggest transitions in U.S. civil aviation history, some 23,000 airline pilots - nearly a third of those now flying - will retire over the next 10 years. An additional 4,500 new pilots could be needed each year when the industry climbs out of its current slump.
The huge turnover is further complicated by another factor: The military - once a major supplier of experienced pilots - no longer is training the numbers needed.
Where the new pilots will come from and what type of training they will receive is the question now looming before industry and government officials.
"The airlines have been spoiled," said John Sheehan, vice president of Phaneuf Associates Inc., a Washington-based aviation consulting firm.
"They've had all these great trained people coming to them," Sheehan said. "Come 1996 or 1997, the things that caused them to be spoiled - experienced pilots - will go away."
Sheehan's firm advises a special panel mandated by Congress to look into the anticipated shortage of pilots and aircraft technicians. The collection of military, government and industry representatives is set to submit proposals next month.
The group faces some daunting roadblocks: a rapidly diminishing pool of military-trained fliers, a new generation of younger pilots with a myriad of training backgrounds, a drop in flight experience among commercial crews, and new technologies that require pilots be more computer nerd and less Top Gun.
"We have to take a good look at how we train and how we put experience on the pilots in the future," said Kenneth Tallman, a former Air Force general who heads the panel. "It would have been nice if we thought of it way far back, but there was no pressure on the airlines to get serious about it."
Even today, there seems little incentive to worry. The failure of Eastern, Pan Am and Midway airlines, combined with cutbacks at other carriers, left some 7,000 experienced pilots looking for work.
But the inevitable march of demographics is taking hold.
The huge cohort of post-Korea and Vietnam-era pilots that joined the commercial ranks in the 1960s as airlines expanded rapidly into jetliners now is bumping into the mandatory retirement age of 60.
Over the next 10 years, an average of 2,400 airline pilots will retire or quit each year.
As the rate of retirement escalates, the percentage of military-trained pilots drops rapidly. A few years ago, 85 percent of airline crews learned how to fly in the military; by decade's end, only a third will have that claim.
While civilian flight schools produce enough pilots to fill the spots, a military background offers bonuses - a rigorous selection process, $1 million worth of training, and experience averaging 3,000 hours flight time.
Today's commercial pilot candidate is typically a commuter airline pilot with 1,500 flight hours, a mix of experience earned over a longer period of time for a variety of employers.
Airline executives see this system of private instruction and internship with a commuter airline as an economical way of harvesting pilots.
The tradeoff, however, will be pilots with less experience.
"The number of flight hours will start shrinking," concedes John Kern, vice president for Northwest's flight operations. "The old school would say if you don't have the seasoning, you're probably not a good risk. But as we recognize we're getting high-quality people, the value of flight hours will diminish."
Not everyone feels comfortable with the trend.
"The question is not whether there will be enough bodies out there, but will we have the ability to train this raw material properly and get them to the requisite level of experience?" Sheehan said.
Gaps in experience and training have been key factors in several fatal air accidents investigated by the NTSB:
In the Jan. 13, 1982, crash of an Air Florida airliner during a snowstorm in Washington, D.C., board investigators blamed inexperience for the crew's failure to follow through on crucial de-icing procedures. Seventy-eight people died.
Two people died on Sept. 20, 1989, when an aborted takeoff sent USAir 5050 skidding into the water at New York's LaGuardia Airport. The captain had 140 hours commanding a Boeing 737; the first officer had only nine hours in the aircraft, with just two takeoffs and landings. Investigators blamed miscues between the two for the accident.
In the 1987 crash of a Continental DC-9 during a snowstorm at Denver's Stapleton Airport, investigators found the newly hired co-pilot's takeoff was too steep, worsening an icing problem. Twenty-eight people died. The 26-year-old co-pilot had only 36 hours experience in the DC-9, the pilot just 136 hours. Investigators discovered the co-pilot was fired by a Houston air carrier for failing flight tests before he joined Continental.
by CNB