The House of Representatives voted 409 to 11 yesterday to approve the Airline Safety and Pilot Training Improvement Act (H.R. 3371), a bi-partisan bill that would establish new flight safety standards and pilot training requirements. This legislation – which the House Transportation Committee approved without amendment on July 30 – would do the following:

• Establish the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Task Force on Air Carrier Safety and Pilot Training (“Task Force”) that would be comprised of air carrier representatives, labor union representatives, and aviation safety experts. The Task Force would be responsible for, among other things, evaluating best practices in the air carrier industry and providing recommendations on air carrier management responsibilities for flight crewmember education and support, flight crewmember professional standards, flight crewmember training standards and performance, and mentoring and information sharing between air carriers. Every 180 days the Task Force would report its findings to Congress and make recommendations for legislative and regulatory action.

• Implement National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) flight crewmember training recommendations to ensure, among other things, that pilots are trained on stall recovery and upset recovery, and that airlines provide remedial training on such maneuvers.
• Require airline pilots to hold an FAA Airline Transport Pilot license, which increases the minimum flight time requirement from 250 to 1,500 hours.
• Establish comprehensive pre-employment screening of prospective pilots that would include an assessment of a pilot’s skills, aptitudes, airmanship and suitability for functioning in the airline’s operational environment.
• Create a Pilot Records Database to provide airlines with electronic access to a pilot’s comprehensive record. Information would include pilot’s licenses, aircraft ratings, check rides, Notices of Disapproval and other flight proficiency tests. The FAA would maintain the database and airlines will be able to access the database for hiring purposes only.
• Require the FAA to update and implement a new pilot flight and duty time rule and fatigue risk management plans to more adequately track scientific research in the field of fatigue. Air carriers, within 90 days, would be required to create fatigue risk management systems approved by the FAA to proactively mitigate pilot fatigue.
• Require airlines to establish pilot mentoring programs, create Pilot Professional Development Committees, modify training to accommodate new-hire pilots with different levels and types of flight experience, and provide leadership and command training to pilots in command.
• Require that the first page of an internet website that sells airline tickets identify the air carrier that operates each segment of the flight.

This legislation, which was drafted in response to the Continental Connection Flight 3407 crash on February 12, 2009, has been relatively well-received by Congressional lawmakers.