From the Buffalo News: Airline laments hiring of Flight 3407 pilot

By Jerry Zremski News Washington Bureau Chief August 07, 2009, 12:32 AM / WASHINGTON The president of Pinnacle Airlines, which owns the airline that operated the plane that crashed in Clarence Center in February, killing 50, Thursday acknowledged the pilot did not belong in the pilot's seat. "Had we known what we know now, he would not have been in that seat," said Philip H. Trenary, president and chief executive officer of Pinnacle, owner of Colgan Air, which operated the doomed plane. Trenary's admission came at a Senate Aviation subcommittee hearing where senators grilled airline executives about several issues that have surfaced in the federal investigation into the crash of Continental Connection Flight 3407. The pilot of that plane, Capt. Marvin Renslow, failed three federal "check rides" before Colgan hired him, but his job application with Colgan showed only one failed check ride. Trenary called Renslow "a fine man, by all accounts," but indicated his failed check rides would have been an issue if Colgan had known about them. Colgan did not double-check Renslow's flight record before hiring him. Doing so would have required Renslow's approval under the federal Privacy Act. Moreover, Trenary said that since such records are expunged after five years, Colgan might not have been able to see Renslow's entire test record. Renslow's performance as Flight 3407 approached Buffalo from Newark, N.J., has surfaced as a key issue in the National Transportation Safety Board's investigation of the crash. Investigators found Renslow reacted inappropriately to a stall warning, doing the opposite of what he should have done to correct the plane's course. Hearing Trenary's admission were several friends and family members of the victims of the Colgan crash. "Obviously it's a shot in the gut, to hear [Trenary] basically admitting wrongdoing," said Kevin Kuwik, whose girlfriend, Lorin Maurer, died in the crash. Trenary's comment highlighted the committee's third hearing stemming from the Clarence crash. This time, senators questioned Trenary along with Don Gunther, the vice president of safety at Continental Airlines, and two other industry executives about the relationship between low-paying regional carriers like Colgan and the major airlines. The executives offered no opposition to proposals by Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., that would increase the role of safety experts on a key Federal Aviation Administration panel and that would require travel Web sites to specify when small regional carriers are operating flights on behalf of the big-name airlines. But the executives withheld judgment on a new proposal by Sen. Mike Johanns, R-Neb., that would make major airlines legally responsible for crashes by the regional airlines they hire to run their smaller routes. "The bottom line for me is the safety piece of this," Johanns said. "There's obviously a savings for major airlines to have [regional airlines] doing routes. So if the only way to figure out safety is to deal with it through liability, I would be open to that possibility." Johanns and several other senators raised questions about the pay scales at regional airlines smaller outfits that contract with major carriers to run less-traveled and off-hours routes. Air crews at regional airlines typically earn far less than those at the bigger carriers. Pinnacle's pilots have seen recent increases that have brought their average salaries to $64,000, while co-pilots still earn "in the low $20,000 range," Trenary said. Johanns termed that "remarkable," saying: "With what you're paying them, I think they'd qualify for every government program we have. Those at the end probably qualify for food stamps." Trenary insisted, however, that there was no relationship between what pilots are paid and their performance. "I believe our pilots are among the best in the industry," he said. The airline executives insisted that there is "one level of safety" between the big carriers and their regional partners. But several senators expressed doubts. And when Sen. Mark Begich, D-Alaska, asked whether Continental had a document that detailed its safety policies and compared them with its regional partners, Gunther, of Continental, said: "We don't have such a document." The subcommittee chairman, Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., said he was concerned about the issue of fatigue among regional airline pilots an issue the FAA is tackling as it rewrites the rules governing when and how much pilots can fly. The co-pilot of Flight 3407, Rebecca L. Shaw, lived with her parents near Seattle and commuted to Newark the night before the fateful flight on a connecting red-eye flight. She later slept in the Colgan pilot lounge at Newark airport. Gunther indicated that the vast majority of pilots who commute to work do so responsibly. "They show up for work ready to go and rested," he said, dismissing as unworkable a proposal to track pilots to make sure that their commuting habits don't interfere with their flying. But Dorgan said he wondered if Shaw's case could point to a larger problem. "Don't you think we now see there's something wrong here ... when you have a co-pilot trying to catch a few winks on the couch?" Dorgan asked.