Letter to John Thune, Chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, and Bill Nelson, Ranking Member of the Senate Commerce Committee - Federal Aviation Safety Regulations

Letter

On February 12, 2009, Continental Connection Flight 3407 operated by Colgan Air crashed into a house in Clarence Center, New York, claiming the lives of all 49 people on board, as well as one man in the home. The subsequent National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigation revealed many deficiencies in how the airline hired, trained, and resourced its pilots. More broadly, this preventable tragedy exposed a wide gap in potential safety risks between the operation of our nation's regional carriers and their mainline partners, reflected by the fact that all six fatal commercial airline crashes on U.S. carriers since 2001 have been on regional carriers.

In response to the findings of the NTSB and Aviation Subcommittee hearings in both chambers, Congress unanimously passed, and President Obama signed into law, Public Law 111-216, the Airline Safety and Federal Aviation Administration Extension Act of 2010. This landmark aviation safety legislation sought to address many of the factors contributing to this increasing safety gap between regional and mainline carriers, through the implementation of numerous initiatives focused on entry level pilot training and qualification standards, pilot fatigue, airline pilot training and safety management programs, and the creation of an electronic pilot record database.

The last four and a half years have seen the FAA and the airline industry make very good progress in the implementation of the provisions of this bill, and have contributed to our commercial aviation system becoming even safer, particularly with regards to our nation's regional carriers. However, as your committee undertakes the task of re-authorizing the FAA, there are some in the industry who would prefer that some of these provisions be watered down, or even worse, completely rolled back--in particular, the new First Officer qualification standards introduced by FAA in August 2013.

As the family members and loved ones of those needlessly lost on Flight 3407 learned in such a painful manner, complacency is a dangerous enemy when it comes to the day-to-day safe operation of our nation's commercial aviation system. In memory of their loved ones and in recognition of the great strides that have already been taken, we call on you and your committee to continue to bolster their efforts to achieve a true "One Level of Safety' between our nation's regional and mainline carriers by resisting any efforts to lower the new first officer training and experience standards introduced by FAA. Furthermore, we call on you to accelerate the implementation of the remaining provisions in the Law by including new rulemaking milestones for the FAA to achieve.

Thank you for your steadfast efforts in promoting the safety of our commercial airline system.

Sincerely,

Charles E. Schumer

United States Senator

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