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Novice pilots &squo;allowed to buy time&squo; | Mercury - The Voice of Tasmania


By Simon Jenkins

July 02, 2008 04:59pm

THE aircraft operator involved in the Lockhart River crash allowed inexperienced pilots to fly passenger flights unpaid to clock up flying time, a Senate inquiry has heard.

Fiona Norris, the wife of a pilot killed while a passenger in the 2005 crash, said Transair pilots were effectively buying flying time while carrying passengers.

Ms Norris said the pilots purchased their time to increase their hours of flight experience.

"I know many pilots who had bought time with Transair," she said.

"Whilst undergoing training, but actually buying time in the capacity that they're not getting paid an income at all, they're actually buying their time," Ms Norris said.

She said the practice was aimed at getting the pilots flying hours up to a required level.

"Under a situation where there isn't really a proper check and training capacity, where it is not really in the interest of the airline to really train these pilots, it's simply a money-making scheme for them," she said.

Ms Norris said pilots with a low number of flying hours should be prevented from flying under certain conditions.

"There should be some regulation where a low-time pilot is not allowed to fly under RPT (regular passenger transport) conditions, especially when the operator was known to take money where pilots were actually able to buy their time on that type of aeroplane."

Her husband, Paul Raymond Morris, was one of the 15 killed people in the Lockhart River crash in Queensland. A coroner found the pilot flew too fast and attempted an unauthorised landing, and the airline's poor safety management practices contributed to the crash.

"I come here with the capacity of a very human element as to how the system failed my husband and the other passengers on board that flight that day," Ms Norris said.

"Obviously, I can only talk from experience as in from that particular flight, is that the co-pilot had very low time, he had under 500 hours.

"My husband, who was a pilot, had around 1500 hours and he was not in the position of flying a metro, a high-performance aeroplane."

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"It is impossible to introduce into society a greater change and a greater evil than this: The conversion of the law into an instrument of plunder.... it erases from everyone's conscience the distinction between justice and injustice" THE LAW, by Frederic Bastiat, Paris 1850.

goxc

What does that mean?

xjetsig

Gulfstream and Mesa are in the South Pacific.

Captain CAVEMAN!

You get what you pay for....?

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Almos' Pau! Try Wait!

TAKING IT BACK.....In Full Reverse

BTAblackops

Ok, a couple of quick points/questions:

Since when is a coroner qualified to determine the cause of a crash???

I'm sorry that her husband died in the crash, but does she think this is going to stop a low time pilot from jumping in the right seat of a 135 op king air to build some flight time?

RPT - Regular Passenger Transport - Is this a new acronymn I am not familiar with?

And her husband, at 1,500 hours isn't in a position to fly a Metro??? That's his problem. I've seen a 13 year old take off, fly, land, and shoot a LOC/DME approach in a 182 and it was his first flight(used MS Flight Sim to train himself). So don't tell me a 1,500 hour pilot with the right stuff isn't qualified to fly right seat in a Metro. Bitch.

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"No wait, it's just an NTSB RECOMMENDATION, which is about as worthless as an STD pamphlet to a whore." - Maxthrust

Aaron Hurger

You must have missed the part about this happening in Queensland. That is in Austrailia you know!

Try not to be so sensitive about your flight times. Your amazingly inapropriate reaction to the article tells me you took it personally. Low time pilots are becoming a growing problem around the world. People are getting jobs today with half the experience they would have needed 10 years ago. Supply and demand.

Whirlpool

Aaron,

The law of supply and demand is about to take turn towards higher time pilots getting the jobs. When all these pilots hit the streets, I doubt some young, straight out of college wanna be with 300 hours will have a snowballs chance in hell getting a job...and I am ok with that.

We need to put experience back on the cockpit. This guy may have had 1500 hours..but in what?

BTAblackops

Ok so I missed the point that it happened down under. I had a bit much to drink. In reality this has happened in the USA with the same reactions.

And I'm not taking the low times personal... And please don't preach to me about the way things used to be. I started flying in 1990. I didn't go to some "6 months to the right seat" school either. You? It isn't my fault that the airline industry is the way it is today.

In addition, I don't agree with jumping into an airplane that I know nothing about just for the flight hours. But the reality of this is that a 1,500 hour pilot is in the right seat of a Metro who is being trained by another pilot who we would like to think is qualified and proficient in the type. Is this any different than the night flight training out of VCT/CLL in the ATR back in the day?

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"No wait, it's just an NTSB RECOMMENDATION, which is about as worthless as an STD pamphlet to a whore." - Maxthrust