I’d Rather Drive A Toyota Than Fly The Skies Of America

By Doug Draper

How would you rather travel between the Buffalo area and New York City? In a Toyota with a sticky gas pedal or on a flight on one of those smaller commuter airlines subcontracted by larger airlines because they figure they can save money not taking you on their own.

I don’t know about you. But I’d choose a Toyota over a commuter plane in a New York minute! And if the gas pedal sticks, at least I’m behind the wheel and can do everything from slamming on the brakes (unless that Toyota happens to be a Prius) to turning off the ignition or both as I veer off the road into a field full of snow where I can hopefully punch open the door and jump free with a minimum of broken bones.

On a commuter jet, all I can do is sit back there in the passenger section, clutching whatever book or magazine I’m reading like a teddy bear as the pilot, who might have about as much training and salary as someone managing a fast food restaurant, works with whatever limited training and hours of experience he’s had in the air to keep to keep us from spiraling downward to that same field of snow.
 
If you think I’m being a little unfair to the airlines, just check out the stories on the front page of The Buffalo News this Feb. 3 (you can find them by visiting www.buffalonews.com and plugging in a few key search words like ‘Flight 3407’ and “fatal stall”) on the fatal flight of a commuter plane, subcontracted by Continental Airlines, a year ago this February as it crashed into a neighbourhood in the Buffalo area community of Clarence.

“An inept pilot and a young first officer who would not challenge him flew Continental Connection Flight 3407 into the ground, accidentally killing themselves and 48 others in Clarence Center last February, federal safety investigators revealed in their long-awaited report Tuesday (Feb. 2). …. ‘What this investigation reveals is a picture of complacency resulting in catastrophe,” said Deborah A.P. Hersman, chairwoman of the National Transportation Safety Board.

The reporting in The Buffalo News noted that family members of the victims of that terrible and unnecessary crash – about 60 of them gathering at the Safety Board meeting in Washington, D.C. from the Buffalo area – responded to the board’s findings with a mixture of sadness and anger.

It is a credit to them that none had to be dragged screaming out of the room where the board’s proceedings were held. I don’t know how well I’d be able to contain myself if I were sitting in that room, listening to all of the complacency and incompetence in the flight deck of that plane before it plunged to the ground.

The bottom line for all of us – Americans and Canadians – taking flights out of Buffalo and on any other U.S. airport on smaller domestic carriers –  is that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) responsible for administering airline safety has been warned for years about the lack of training and salaries needed to draw the most competent pilots possible to the flight deck. But more often than not, this body has caved to airline industry lobbyists and other special interests that have placed profits and cutting every corner they can get away with ahead of providing the safest service possible for their customers.

This time the FAA ought to put the welfare of the flying public first or face the possibility that at least some of us – this writer included – would opt for taking a covered wagon all the way to California before we ever got on a plane again.

For those who might counter that flying is still safer than driving a car, it might be interesting to consider that as much as people are being warned about faulty gas pedals in Toyotas right now, reports indicate there have been about 18 or 19 deaths on this continent related to gas pedal problems in that make of car over the past 10 years.

That’s less than half the number of people who were wiped in a series of catastrophic errors that took place on Flight 3407 last year in less time than it took you to read this commentary.

I would also add that the recommendations being called for by the Safety Board that investigated this tragedy – especially with respect to more stringent training practices for pilots – should receive at least as much attention from the media and from politicians as the failed attempt by an extremist, on a plane landing in Detroit this past Christmas, to ignite explosives hidden in his underwear.

At least in that case – thanks to a few heroic passengers on that plan who were able to subdue the perpetrator – no one died. Maybe that’s a reason why we should put corporations willing to profits before our safety and security on the same ‘threat level’ as terrorists!

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