'Flying Cheap' zeros in on Colgan
Attitudes on safety are probed by PBS
Published: February 09, 2010, 7:41 am
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WASHINGTON — The airline that operated Continental Connection Flight 3407 showed signs of safety weaknesses long before that plane plummeted to the ground in Clarence Center a year ago, PBS reports in a "Frontline" program to be aired nationwide tonight.
"Flying Cheap," which will air on WNED-TV in Buffalo at 9 p.m., features interviews with three former pilots with Colgan Air who voice their complaints about the company's operations and their potential impact on safety.
Two of the pilots say the regional airline's primary motivation was to always complete each flight, no matter the conditions, because otherwise Colgan would not get paid by the major carrier with which it contracted.
The third complains that the airline defended another pilot who falsified records showing a plane's weight to be within acceptable limits when it actually was dangerously overweight.
The program, hosted by former CNN anchor and trained pilot Miles O'Brien, also includes analysis of the overall impact on the Clarence crash, which claimed 50 lives last Feb. 12.
"It's become the symbol of everything that's wrong with the [airline] industry," said Clay Foushee, a congressional investigator interviewed on the program. "For this decade, it is the watershed accident."
The "Frontline" report repeats many of the concerns that have been raised in The Buffalo News and other media outlets about pilot training and fatigue, but the PBS program also shows former Colgan pilots Corey Heiser and Chris Wiken talking in depth about how profits trumped safety at the airline.
"The saying at the company was always, "Move the rig,' " Heiser said. "Because if we didn't move those airplanes, we didn't make any money."
"Frontline" questions whether that profits-first mentality might prompt Colgan to operate flights in unsafe weather — or even before its pilots were comfortable with the planes they were flying.
The report notes, for example, that Federal Aviation Administration officials were worried back in 2008 when Colgan started flying the Bombardier Dash 8 Q400, the model that crashed on approach to Buffalo Niagara International Airport.
"The FAA was soon concerned that pilots had trouble flying the airplane," according to "Frontline," which says the agency was receiving "reports that pilots were executing poor judgment."
That point is especially important because Capt. Marvin D. Renslow, the pilot of Flight 3407, mishandled the response to a stall warning and ended up crashing the plane, the National Transportation Safety Board reported last week.
In addition, Wiken tells "Frontline" that Colgan pushed its pilots to fly even when they were tired.
Wiken says that after working several 16-hour duty days in a row, he tried to call in fatigued. In response, a Colgan official offered to falsify his flying records so that he could fly home that night and supposedly not be in violation of federal rules limiting how much pilots can fly, Wiken says.
Meanwhile, former Colgan co-pilot Ben Coats talks about reporting a colleague, Capt. Jared Kyle Angstadt, for falsifying a plane's records so that it could fly when it was overweight. Coats dubbed that action "very dangerous."
The FAA stripped Angstadt of his license after that incident, but Colgan defended him, calling him a "model pilot."
Colgan declined to talk with "Frontline," as did Continental Airlines, which contracted with Colgan to operate Flight 3407.
The documentary portrays Colgan as a poster child for the growing regional airline industry, those contract operators that strike deals with the big airlines to run flights with smaller planes. Those regional airlines now account for more than half of America's commercial flights.
Left to defend the regional airline industry was Roger Cohen, president of the Regional Airline Association.
"Safety is the No. 1 priority," Cohen says. "No airline ... would ever operate any aircraft at any time and risk the safety of the passengers and crew."
Nevertheless, the "Frontline" program — which PBS provided to reporters in advance of its nationwide airing — shows a far different view of Colgan and the regional airline industry.
It takes viewers inside a regional airline pilots' "crash pad," which several pilots share when they are flying into what "Frontline" describes as a major Northeastern city.
The crash pad is jammed with bunk beds everywhere, including in the kitchen. Regional pilots, many of whom make less than $25,000 a year, have to rely on such accommodations because they can't afford anything else.
Noting that he made about $22,000 at Colgan in his first year with the carrier, Heiser complains of "literally starving at the end of the day."
Wiken notes that he was promoted to captain at Colgan after only nine months on the job, far less than would be required at a major airline, leading him to ask:
"Almost scary, isn't it?"
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