Buffalo, New York-\u00a0May 21, 2013<\/p>\n
With Key Safety Rules Hanging in the Balance, Flight 3407 Families to Attend Foxx’s Senate Confirmation Hearing on Wednesday<\/p>\n
Families Call on Obama Administration to Stand Up to Airlines’ Pressure to Water Down Regional Airline Safety Reforms<\/p>\n
With the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the Department of Transportation (DOT), and the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) in a sprint to finish one key regional airline safety measure by August 1st, and a second by mid-October, the \u2018Families of Continental Flight 3407\u2019 announced that they would be present at Wednesday\u2019s Senate Commerce Committee confirmation hearing for Mayor Anthony Foxx.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 “There is no doubt that the airlines are employing every trick in their lobbying playbook to find the weakest link at FAA, DOT, or OMB and get them to agree to water down these proposed regulations in their favor,\u201d declared Scott Maurer of Moore, South Carolina, who lost his thirty year-old daughter Lorin in the crash.\u00a0 \u201cOver the past few decades, trade associations like Airlines for America and the Regional Airline Association have been the undisputed heavyweight champions when it has come to taking on safety advocacy groups like us and finding a way to obstruct the rulemaking process.<\/p>\n
As Mayor Foxx potentially enters the fray here at the eleventh hour, you can be sure that he has already heard, or will be hearing, from multiple industry henchmen that the sky is about to fall for the airlines if these new regulations are allowed to be implemented in the strongest manner intended by Congress.\u00a0 Hopefully, he follows the lead of his predecessor Secretary LaHood and puts safety first, ensuring that passengers on regional airlines receive the most highly-qualified and well-trained crew possible.\u00a0 If only Colgan\/Pinnacle\/Continental\/United would have done the same for Lorin.\u201d \u00a0 \u00a0 The two rules under consideration are the \u2018Pilot Certification and Qualification Requirements\u2019 rulemaking, as well as the \u2018Qualification, Service, and Use of Crewmembers and Aircraft Dispatchers\u2019 rulemaking.\u00a0 The former, which will significantly enhance both the qualitative and quantitative requirements for a First Officer to be hired by a regional airline, is currently at OMB, and must be published by August 1st.\u00a0 The latter, which will provide a much-needed update to the FAA’s\u00a0requirements on\u00a0how regional airlines train their pilots, is now 20 months overdue, and targeted for completion by October 21st.\u00a0 It is still at FAA, and is scheduled to be sent to DOT on June 3rd. \u00a0 “In light of the extensive delays that have already occurred with these rulemakings, this is certainly not the ideal time for transition to be occurring at DOT,” stated Karen Eckert of Williamsville, New York, who lost her sister and prominent 9\/11 widow and activist Beverly Eckert.\u00a0 \u201cThe objectives of FAA and DOT have historically been muddled by the so-called \u2018dual mandate\u2019 of regulating safety while at the same time promoting the growth of the aviation industry in the United States.\u00a0 Safety costs money, and there is always going to be some industry resistance when it comes to implementing stronger safety regulations, in this case geared towards the regional airline industry.<\/p>\n
Hopefully Mayor Foxx is able to grasp the significant gap that still exists in our quest for a true \u2018One Level of Safety\u2019 between our nation\u2019s mainline and regional carriers, and provide true leadership in seeing both of these rulemakings completed in not only a timely, but also the strongest, manner possible.\u201d \u00a0 Wednesday\u2019s confirmation hearing for Mayor Foxx will he held at 2:30 p.m. in Room 253 of the Russell Senate Office Building, the hearing room for the Senate\u2019s Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.\u00a0 It will be led by Chairman\u00a0Sen. Jay\u00a0Rockefeller (D-WV) and Ranking Member Sen. John Thune (R-SD).<\/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> learn more about their efforts.<\/p>\n Contact:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Takla Boujaoude\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0takla.3407@gmail.com \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0716-907-2425<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Buffalo, New York-\u00a0May 21, 2013 With Key Safety Rules Hanging in the Balance, Flight 3407 Families to Attend Foxx’s Senate Confirmation Hearing on Wednesday Families Call on Obama Administration to Stand Up to Airlines’ Pressure to Water Down Regional Airline Safety Reforms With the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the Department of Transportation (DOT), and the […]<\/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":[3317,3325,682],"class_list":["post-8723","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","tag-co3407","tag-faa","tag-foxx"],"yoast_head":"\n