Panel favors fewer flying safety rules

JOAN LOWY

WASHINGTON — An influential industry committee recommended Thursday that the Federal Aviation Administration eliminate or scale back dozens of safety rules, including one on airline pilot qualifications.

The FAA’s Aviation Rulemaking Advisory Committee said the recommendations are a response to an effort by the agency to comply with President Donald Trump’s directives to cut government regulations. The committee approved a report containing the recommendations by a vote of 14-4 with one abstention.

Pilots unions and safety groups oppose the recommendation on pilot qualifications. Regional airlines have been trying to roll back the pilot qualifications rule since it was adopted by the FAA in response to an aviation safety law passed by Congress after the last fatal crash of a U.S. passenger airliner.

Lawmakers said at the time that they were concerned about reports in the wake of the crash of Colgan Flight 3407 in February 2009 near Buffalo, N.Y., that some rapidly growing regional airlines were hiring first officers with far less experience than pilots at major airlines. All 49 people on board and a man on the ground were killed after the captain responded incorrectly to safety systems, causing the plane to stall.

After the crash, lawmakers increased to 1,500 the minimum number of flight hours that first officers must have in order to obtain licenses to fly commercial passenger airliners, the same number as captains, leading to more experienced first officers.