Long before Comair's ill-fated Flight 3272 departed Cincinnati on Jan. 9, federal aviation experts had raised serious concerns over the safety of commuter airlines.
Scores of federal reports on safety, performance and investigations involving commuter airlines reviewed by The Enquirer reveal past and current problems that government officials say desperately need to be fixed.
Comair Flight 3272 was a 30-seat Embraer 120 Brasilia. All 29 people on board died when the Cincinnati-to-Detroit flight crashed in a field about 18 miles southwest of Detroit Metropolitan Airport.
Despite the recent crash, Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) officials say Comair's safety record is among the best in the industry.
Comair spokeswoman Meghan Glynn echoed the FAA findings about the company's safety record. ''At Comair, we strive to make sure safety is a No. 1 priority.''
But as federal aviation investigators continue to sift through the wreckage, an Enquirer review of FAA and National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) records show commuter plane passengers flying today can expect:
- Pilots less-experienced and less-trained than those flying the larger jets.
- Less-thorough mechanical and safety inspections of the 30-seat-and-under turboprop planes than their bigger counterparts.
- Less-stringent rules and regulations mandating state-of-the-art flight and safety equipment on the smaller aircraft, despite efforts by the FAA to bring parity between large jets and the commuter planes.
To counter those concerns - and to make commuter flights safer - the FAA is set to implement new rules March 20 for commercial aircraft with fewer than 30 seats. Those rules are designed to bring the smaller carriers in line with several safety regulations already mandated for the major airlines.
Those rules, first proposed in 1995, include requiring:
- Pilots to fly no more than eight hours at a stretch.
- Pilots to retire at age 50.
- Airlines to have a trained safety officer on staff.
- Each airline to have a ground-deicing
system.
- Companies to update and provide safety, training and performance manuals for employees.
One of the most publicized criticisms of the commuter airlines came only six months ago from Mary Schiavo, then-inspector general of the Department of Transportation and a longtime critic of the FAA's airline safety management.
In a stinging rebuke of the FAA, Ms. Schiavo, upon announcing her resignation last July, said the agency lacked the commitment to ensuring commuter airlines faced the same stringent safety requirements the larger airliners do.
''I keep seeing holes in the safety net - gaps in regulation and oversight,'' Ms. Schiavo said. ''I won't even fly commuter airlines because I don't think they're safe.''
One retired pilot who has flown several turboprop models for commuter airlines between 1972 and 1995 agrees.
''The frightening reality is the FAA has never mandated the same degree of equipment and safety requirements or pilot background checks for the puddle-jumpers,'' said John Barton, 66, a retired American Airlines pilot from Denver.
While the new FAA rules may make some fliers of commuter airlines feel more secure, the agency's own studies and statistics won't.
For example, a 1996 FAA study found the fatality rate on commuter flights was almost twice that of large carriers in 1995. Another 1995 FAA report revealed that approximately 95 percent of all airline crashes occur during takeoff or landing.
Because commuter airlines make shorter trips than commercial flights, they must take off and land many more times to cover the same amount of ground, thus making them more likely to be involved in a crash, according to the report.
Congressional auditors last year found that while the FAA has lots of rules, it does not have enough inspectors to enforce them. Worse yet, said the auditors, their investigation found that the inspectors the agency did have were ''ill-trained and ill-supervised'' and were fearful they would fired if they insisted that airlines adhere to the rules.
FAA inspections of the smaller commuter airlines generally found inspectors often were more lax on the small planes, the auditors said.
Other FAA and NTSB safety and incident reports revealed cases of commuter pilots routinely ignoring FAA rules about not flying too close to a larger jet's wake; safety warning equipment being unplugged; and pilots sometimes forced to take multiple flights causing exhaustion.
One criticism by Ms. Schiavo, Mr. Barton and four current airline pilots recently interviewed by The Enquirer focuses on what they say is the FAA's failure to accelerate testing of ice-buildup problems involving turboprop aircraft, such as the Embraer 120 Brasilia involved in the Comair crash.
''The Comair disaster is eerily similar to an American Eagle commuter flight that crashed and killed 68 people outside Chicago in October 1994,'' said a Northwest Airlines pilot from Detroit who asked not to be identified, citing Northwest's policy against giving interviews without corporate approval.
NTSB officials investigating that crash of a French-made ATR-72 turboprop determined that the plane suffered an unusual and treacherous icing condition called ''supercooled drizzle drops.''
According to the FAA, that is a situation where droplets of super-cool
water exist in a suspended state in the atmosphere and freeze instantly when disturbed - such as by the passage of an airplane wing. The drops can cause a rapid ice buildup.
In the Chicago crash, the ''supercooled drizzle drops'' on the
ATR-72's wings formed a ridge of ice that affected the airflow over the wing.
According to an FAA report, that ridge caused the airflow to let an aileron - a movable surface on the back edge of the wing used to bank the plane - to extend, causing the plane to spiral uncontrollably to the ground.
Although the FAA initiated some testing of ice-buildup on turboprops after the American Eagle disaster, and it proposed rules in 1996 instructing turboprop pilots on how to identify the dangerous phenomenon, Mr. Barton and the four current airline pilots concurred that the effort was ''too slow and inadequate.''
A review of the 1995 FAA findings regarding the drizzle drop problem found that investigators discovered that on an Embraer 120, ice forms on the rear part of the two propellers' bullet-shaped hubs called the ''spinners.'' A buildup of ice on those spinners could result in a crash, the study found.
Because the Comair plane was flying in a snowstorm with frigid winds, the NTSB is investigating the possibility of ice buildup, said spokeswoman Shelly Hazle.
Embraer officials in Brazil have downplayed the suggestion that the ''drizzle drop'' scenario may have played a role in the Comair disaster.
PROFILES OF VICTIMS
SEVEN DAYS OF CRASH COVERAGE
