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Scooter Trash!!!
Piedmont denies 'deal' to uncover whistle-blowers
Union says airline offered pilots 'free pass' on tests
by Tom Precious
News Albany Bureau
Updated: March 07, 2010, 11:23 am / 0 comments
Published: March 07, 2010, 6:54 am
ALBANY — Piedmont Airlines has offered its pilots a "free pass" on required, annual safety training that tests their flying skills in return for providing names of fellow pilots who anonymously raised concerns to The Buffalo News in January about an airline safety device, its pilot union has charged.
An executive at Piedmont, a wholly owned subsidiary of US Airways that flies into Buffalo and 54 other cities, approached "numerous" pilots offering a trade: turn in the names of the whistle-blowers in return for a pass on their Continuing Qualification training and a five-day break from flying duty, the union charges.
The claim was made in a March 2 letter to Piedmont President Steve Farrow from the chairman of Piedmont's affiliate of the Air Line Pilots Association, a union of commercial airline pilots.
"These actions reinforce the perception that the Piedmont Airline Training Department is utilized as a disciplinary tool. It also indicates a serious misuse of a designated examiner letter of authorization, for purposes other than training, and promoting the safe operation of Piedmont Airlines," Capt. Charles Martinak wrote in a letter to Farrow. A copy was obtained by The Buffalo News.
The union threatened to pursue "remedies through necessary channels" if the "direction, attitudes, and safety culture" at the airline's training department are not addressed. Sources said that could include a formal complaint lodged with the Federal Aviation Administration.
In a statement released through its Arizona-based US Airways Group parent, Piedmont Airlines denied any "free pass" for pilots in its annual training session was ever offered by John Pfeifle, the person the union identified as approaching pilots with the offer. Pfeifle works in the carrier's training department and is a "check airman" who certifies the abilities of individual pilots.
The Maryland-based Piedmont, whose planes carry the US Airways Express logo and colors, said it is aware of the pilots' union letter to Farrow. Neither Farrow not Pfeifle was made available by the airline for interviews.
"While Mr. Pfeifle, a respected pilot in our training department, did indeed have at least one casual conversation with another pilot" regarding the Jan. 31 Buffalo News report, "at no time did he "offer a free pass at CQ' to any Piedmont pilot," Piedmont said.
'No fear of reprisal'
Piedmont leadership had "no knowledge" of any of the conversations and "further investigation of the episode revealed that the comments attributed to Mr. Pfeifle may have been mischaracterized," the airline said. The statement did not elaborate, and a US Airways spokesman did not return a call for further comment on the matter.
Piedmont said it also encourages employees to report any concerns about practices or procedures at the airline "with no fear of reprisal." It cited an internal process that allows such an avenue for its workers.
But the carrier's pilots' union, in the letter last week, said that "numerous Piedmont pilots have been approached" and were offered a free pass at CQ and a week off "in exchange for the identity of a pilot, or pilots" who were interviewed by The Buffalo News concerning Piedmont Airline's "stick pusher training."
One pilot, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said he was among those approached with the offers for giving up the names of the whistle-blowers. The pilot said the offer also was made to a group of pilots in one setting at the airline. The pilot declined to provide specifics about when and where the offers were made for fear of retaliation.
Another Piedmont pilot aware of the matter, when asked how many pilots were approached, said: "Numerous. Numerous." He declined to elaborate.
A Piedmont pilot said talk about the January Buffalo News article and a desire to catch the whistle-blowers who talked for the article came up during at least one classroom training session.
The pilot stressed the safety level of Piedmont — more than 100,000 flight operations last year with just two minor incidents.
"The Piedmont pilot's record of safety and performance is one of the best in the airline industry," the pilot said. He urged the airline's management to "address our concerns" with its training department.
The Buffalo News reported in January that Piedmont was not providing hands-on training for stick pusher devices in one of its models of turboprop planes the carrier uses. The stick pusher is the device that Capt. Marvin Renslow mistakenly fought three times in the Continental Connection Flight 3407 crash in Clarence last year. Fifty people died in the accident after the plane spun out of control in a crash that federal safety investigators said had a number of contributing factors.
No stick pusher simulator
The stick pusher is a safety device intended to keep a plane from going into an aerodynamic stall, which occurs when the wings do not generate enough lift to keep a plane flying. The first line of defense — besides a pilot's own skills — is a warning device known as a stick shaker, which indicates a possible stall. If a full stall becomes more imminent, the stick pusher then takes over control and noses the plane downward to build up speed to break the stall. Renslow had no hands-on, simulator-based stick pusher training on the Dash 8 Q400 series plane that crashed in Clarence.
Piedmont pilots in January reported they also received no training — other than occasional classroom discussions — on how to react to a stick pusher activation.
"It'd be nice to know when that thing activates that I've had some sort of experience with it," one Piedmont pilot, speaking anonymously, said at the time.
Piedmont pilots say the FAA should have required the carrier to disarm the stick pusher devices until they get trained on the device. The situation affects the airline's fleet of Dash 8 300 series aircraft, which seat 50 passengers.
In issuing its safety recommendations in the aftermath of the Flight 3407 crash, the National Transportation Safety Board in a Feb. 23 letter to the head of the FAA raised concerns about stick pusher training standards. It said classroom training is not enough because it does not "familiarize pilots associated with stick pusher activation or provide them with experience in learning the magnitude of the airplane's pitch response."
The safety board told FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt that it heard from expert witnesses during its Flight 3407 investigation that hands-on stick pusher training is necessary so that a pilot's first experience with a stick pusher does not occur in an emergency.
US Airways in January said the FAA does not specifically require stick pusher training in a simulator, but that the carrier believes the training is important and should be offered to Piedmont pilots.
Piedmont's simulator training facility in Charlotte, N.C., has been getting an upgrade and is now nearly ready to begin offering stick pusher training to pilots, US Airways spokesman Morgan Durrant told The News on Friday. He said the carrier is awaiting final FAA approval.
The simulator in Charlotte to provide stick pusher training is being recertified by the FAA and any required training is done by Piedmont at another facility in Toronto, said Les Dorr, an FAA spokesman.
FAA declines to comment
As for the Piedmont pilots' union complaint about an executive seeking out the identification of whistle-blowers, Dorr said the FAA was unaware of the matter.
"So we will decline to comment on it," he said.
More than 300 Piedmont pilots are estimated to go through the Charlotte training facility each year for mandatory, recurrent training known by some pilots as CQ training. The programs include some training mandated by the FAA but can vary by airline in what gets taught and tested. The training can go over — in the course of three days in Piedmont's case — a slew of classroom information that serves as a refresher course for pilots on everything from weather to lessons learned from recent airplane incidents.
Simulator training and testing are major parts of the sessions, and pilots not performing adequately could be forced to take additional training, be bumped from captain to first officer or, in the worst case, fired.
A spokeswoman at the NTSB said the allegations by the Piedmont pilots are "outside our purview" and declined to comment.
Martinak, the Piedmont pilots' union chairman who sent the letter on behalf of the labor group's leadership council, did not return calls or e-mails seeking comment. In a written statement, issued by ALPA, the parent international pilots' union, Martinak noted that the union asked Piedmont to investigate and respond to its concerns within 10 days.
"We feel it would be inappropriate to discuss these issues until the company has had the opportunity to resolve them internally," Martinak said. "The Piedmont pilots' union is committed to working with the company to ensure the highest standards of safety through the effective training of our pilots."
http://www.buffalonews.com/2010/03/07/979524/piedmont-denies-deal-to-uncover.html
