The recent fatal plane crash in Phuket has raised new concerns about air safety and pilot training. Australia is considering a new licensing system for co-pilots which puts more emphasis on flight simulators over actual flying time. But critics warn this training is inadequate.
Transcript
KERRY O'BRIEN: Fatal plane crashes in Indonesia and Thailand this year with more than a hundred deaths, while still being investigated, have both put the issue of pilot competency in the spotlight. In Australia, there are warnings that our own commercial air safety could be compromised by a proposed new licensing system for co-pilots. Australia's air safety watchdog is overseeing a trial of a new system in Brisbane, which involves a greater emphasis on flight simulators over actual air time. Its supporters say it gives budding pilots a better idea of extreme conditions behind the controls. Others claim it means trainees with just 10 hours actual flying time could receive what's called a multi-crew pilot's licence.Mark Willacy reports on this controversial scheme.
MARK WILLACY: By any standard, 2007 has been a horror year for commercial air safety. It started on New Years Day, with the crash of an Indonesian 737 which killed everyone on board. Two months later in Yogyakarta, another Indonesian airliner exploded after careering off the end of a runway. 22 people, including five Australian, died. Earlier this month, 89 people were killed when a Thai plane crashed in bad weather on the resort island of Phuket. Hundreds more have died this year in accidents in South America and Africa.
PETER GIBSON, CIVIL AVIATION SAFETY AUTHORITY: One of the factors that's behind 80 or 90 per cent of accidents are mistakes by people on the flight deck. Now if we can train our crews from Day One in their pilot training to look for those errors that they're making, to look for the mistakes they can make, to look for the threats to safety and to identify those accurately and take actions to avoid them, then we can avoid accidents.
PILOT TRAINER: Alpha Echo Alpha, you're cleared for take-off, runway left. We note that there are thunderstorms in the area.
MARK WILLACY: This is how the Civil Aviation Safety Authority hopes the pilots of the future will be trained to avoid accidents. In Brisbane, the Airline Academy of Australia in conjunction with Boeing is trialling a new training regime involving one of the most advanced flight simulators in the world. If the new regime is implemented in line with International Civil Aviation Organisation guidelines, trainees could qualify for a commercial copilot's licence after just 10 hours solo flying in an actual plane.
JUSTIN WASTNAGE, NEWS EDITOR, 'TRAVEL WEEKLY': ICAO has introduced this new class of licence called a multi-crew pilot's licence, which really is a speeded-up version of the commercial pilot's licence, essentially spitting out some copilots rather than fully-trained captains with a lot of work done in simulators rather than flying small aircraft.
MARK WILLACY: This sounds like a great plan to turn out a lot of pilots rapidly, but there are some who are concerned it may compromise safety.
PETER SOMERVILLE, AUSTRALIAN & INTERNATIONAL PILOTS ASSOCIATION: There is a question mark over it, in our view. There is no, so far as we're aware, scientific basis for it or to prove that it will work as well as the current licensing arrangements. And clearly in Australia we've got one of the safest commercial aviation environments and in those circumstances we as airline pilots will stand up to make sure we keep those safe standards.
STEWART CAMERON, AIRLINE ACADEMY OF AUSTRALIA: This is a Diamond 40 which we're using for multi-crew pilot program.
MARK WILLACY: This is the man running the trial which could lead to Australia adopting the multi-crew pilots licence or MPL. A former RAAF commander, Stewart Cameron is the CEO of the Airline Academy of Australia and a keen advocate of changing the licensing system.
STEWART CAMERON: This is the first time in nearly 50 years we've actually looked at a way of changing the training. It's competency based, you know, again I come back again to the issue of safety. No one in this industry is going to do anything that's going to put the travelling public in jeopardy.
TRAINEE PILOT: Note that the weather is raining.
MARK WILLACY: The academy simulator can certainly test would-be pilots by replicating some of the most challenging flying conditions. Here the pilots are doing battle with blinding rain and severe cross winds but old hands warn that nothing beats the real thing.
PETER SOMERVILLE: There's something to be said for a young pilot flying solo, getting an idea of the dangers and how dangerous the activity of flying an aircraft can be. But it may be that the MPL program doesn't give people that level of training.
PETER GIBSON: Simulators today are incredibly sophisticated. You can do things in them that you simply can't do in an aircraft. You can pretend you've got an engine failure in a 737 by shutting down the engine and making the pilots go through that drill. You can't do that in a real aircraft.
MARK WILLACY: Last year the Federal Opposition was so concerned it called for a Senate inquiry into the multi-crew pilots licensing, pointing out that the September 11 hijackers had more flying hours than the 10 required under the proposed system. But the civil aviation watchdog argues that under the current system many would-be commercial pilots spend too much time flying irrelevant, single-engine aircraft.
PETER GIBSON: It's a mix of flying in aircraft. You've still got to do your basic flying training, but then you'll move more quickly into simulator where you can learn to fly in the environment that you're going to be operating in, in other words in 737s, 747s and most importantly, with two pilots, learn to work as a crew.
MARK WILLACY: At the Airline Academy of Australia, the CEO Stewart Cameron, says the trial of multi-crew pilot licensing is more stringent than the one suggested by international authorities, meaning the pilots who graduate there will have 100 hours more training than the guidelines recommended.
STEWART CAMERON: In fact, the students here will be doing about 140 hours - a mixture of flying and high-fidelity simulation. The licence is issued at the end of 12 take off and landings, in this case in a 737.
MARK WILLACY: With the economies of China and India booming, and more people flying than ever before, there's a huge shortage of pilots, meaning the pressure is on to train more.
STEWART CAMERON: If we look at what the national civil aviation organisation is telling us, for the next 18 years or thereabouts we're looking at a deficit of about 80,000 odd pilots.
MARK WILLACY: Richard Chen from Taiwan hopes to graduate from the Airline Academy of Australia in six months and then head home to fulfil his passion for flying while also landing a lucrative job.
RICHARD CHEN, TRAINEE PILOT: Aviation is cool. In Australia is the best in the world, the whole world. The instructor here, they are amazing. They have a lot of knowledge to teach us.
MARK WILLACY: The trial of the multi-crew pilots licensing system will wrap up next year, then CASA will invite the community to comment on it. After that, the decision will be made whether or not to implement it.
PETER GIBSON: We'll make sure that the standards, if this goes ahead, require the pilots to reach a level of skills, knowledge and competencies that mean they will be able to fly whatever aircraft they're qualified to do in exactly the same way as pilots can today. Really the standards may end up being higher than they are today.
PETER SOMERVILLE: At the present time this new, synthetic training is not proven and it needs to be done carefully and cautiously. And at the present time Australia is leading the world in the introduction of this licence. That's why we're concerned. We simply don't want the first multi-crew pilot licence arrangement, we want the best.
KERRY O'BRIEN: Mark Willacy with that report.
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