Air France Flight 447 Report Cites Lack of Training in ‘Surprise Situations’; Hauntingly Similar to Flight 3407 Findings<\/p>\n
Buffalo, New York-\u00a0July 10, 2012 \u2013\u00a0Responding to last week’s release of a final report on the causes of the fatal 2009 Air France crash that claimed 228 lives,\u00a0the ‘Families of Continental Flight 3407’ continued to press officials in the Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, and the White House Office of Management and Budget to pick up the pace\u00a0in finalizing\u00a0critical pilot training improvements that would address a recurring problem of pilots improperly responding to emergency situations.\u00a0 The timeline for these safety reforms, which were unanimously approved by both houses of Congress in 2010\u00a0and directed to be completed by October 2011, has recently been pushed back to October 2013 by the FAA and the Obama Administration.<\/p>\n
Citing a process which already dates back to 1999, and which includes heavy industry pressure to delay the FAA’s efforts, the family group called on acting FAA Administrator Michael Huerta to come through for the flying public and put safety ahead of the industry’s bottom line. \u00a0 “Just like with what the NTSB found with Flight 3407, the Air France final report underscores the dramatic need to better train our pilots to react to emergency situations, and in particular to not be so heavily reliant on the automation in the cockpit,” stated Scott Maurer of Moore, South Carolina, who lost his thirty-year\u00a0old daughter Lorin.\u00a0 “And it is\u00a0not just one\u00a0crash investigation calling for this; it is\u00a0multiple crash investigations, and\u00a0it is\u00a0expert pilots like Sully Sullenberger and Jeff Skiles from the ‘Miracle on the Hudson’.\u00a0 Everyone keeps saying that we need to re-emphasize pilots’ manual flying skills, and train their responses to emergency situations in a more realistic and robust way, and yet we continue to see the FAA spinning its wheels.<\/p>\n
Shame on us if we continue to let months and years pass because we can’t cut through the bureaucratic red tape and achieve a common-sense solution that\u00a0has been staring us in the face for the past three years.\u00a0 And don’t get me started on the airlines doing this voluntarily; voluntary compliance, or the lack thereof, is exactly why the crash of Flight 3407 happened in the first place.”\u00a0 \u00a0 The group called on FAA and the Administration to live up to Huerta’s pledge to Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John D. ‘Jay’ Rockefeller (D-WV)\u00a0to ‘provide the resources to get this done as quickly as possible’, in reference to a process which has already included industry input from a rule making advisory committee and two rounds of proposed rules with comment periods.\u00a0 Of even greater concern, the FAA’s latest proposal carries a five year compliance window, which would potentially not require the changes until 2019, over 10 years after the Flight 3407 crash.<\/p>\n
Contact:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Takla Boujaoude\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 takla.3407@gmail.com \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 716-907-2425<\/p>\n
The ‘Families of Continental Flight 3407\u2019 group was immediately organized after the crash as a support network and an activist group to work on aviation safety reform.\u00a0 Visit the group\u2019s website <\/a>or follow them on twitter @3407families<\/a> to learn more about their efforts.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Air France Flight 447 Report Cites Lack of Training in ‘Surprise Situations’; Hauntingly Similar to Flight 3407 Findings Buffalo, New York-\u00a0July 10, 2012 \u2013\u00a0Responding to last week’s release of a final report on the causes of the fatal 2009 Air France crash that claimed 228 lives,\u00a0the ‘Families of Continental Flight 3407’ continued to press officials […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[3317,3325],"class_list":["post-1763","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","tag-co3407","tag-faa"],"yoast_head":"\n