Flight 3407 safety moves continue as FAA pushes pilot database

Aug. 31--WASHINGTON -- The last major aviation safety measure stemming from the crash of Continental Connection Flight 3407 -- a federal effort to keep bad pilots out of passenger airplane cockpits -- is finally starting to move forward.

Nine years after the families pressed Congress into passing a landmark aviation safety law in reaction to the 2009 plane crash in Clarence, the Federal Aviation Administration has sent its proposal for creating a pilot records database on to the Trump administration for a final review.

Rep. Brian Higgins, a Buffalo Democrat, said Saturday that the FAA notified him of the move a day earlier.

"Following years of delay, any progress toward implementation is certainly welcome," Higgins said. "However, this prolonged pace is completely unreasonable. The administration should act swiftly on full pilot record database implementation."

The Families of Continental Flight 3407 agreed.

"It's a step that should have been taken a while back, but I think we're happy about it," said John Kausner of Clarence, who lost his daughter, Ellyce, in the crash. "I would say we're all positive and hopeful, but we remain cautious, as always. It's the government."

Creation of the pilot records database was required under the 2010 aviation safety law, which has already resulted in far tighter rules on pilot training and experience as well as a new regimen requiring pilots to get more rest.

The Flight 3407 families insisted on creation of the pilot records database in the hope that it would prevent airlines from hiring pilots with spotty flight records.

The pilot of Flight 3407, Marvin Renslow, had failed three federal "check rides" before getting hired by Colgan Air, the now-defunct regional airline that operated the doomed Newark-to-Buffalo flight. The Feb. 12, 2009, crash claimed 50 lives, and the federal investigation that followed blamed the accident on pilot error.

Even the head of the company that owned Colgan seemed shaken that Renslow was in the cockpit that night.

"Had we known what we know now, he would not have been in that seat," Philip H. Trenary, president and chief executive officer of Pinnacle Airlines, said at an August 2009 Senate hearing on the crash.

The database will be designed to be the airlines' first one-stop shop for searching federal records on individual pilots, including not only their flight records, but also their state driving records.

It might seem that compiling such a database would be an easy task in the internet era, but it has proved to be anything but that.

The FAA didn't get around to putting together a test version of the database until 2017 -- and then when it did, it didn't work. A technical glitch somehow stopped the database's internet sign-on from working, thereby leading to security concerns. That prompted the FAA to delay moving forward on a rule implementing the database.

The FAA told Higgins on Friday, though, that it had written the rule and sent it on to the Office of Management and Budget for review.

Required by law, that review usually takes between six and nine months, including a public comment period. The database is not expected to be especially costly, and Kausner said he expects no hang-ups at OMB that could delay the database yet again.

That means that if there are no more glitches or complications along the way, the pilot record database could finally become a reality sometime in 2020.

Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, a Democrat who was the driving congressional force behind the aviation safety law, was glad to hear it.

"Over a decade since Flight 3407, this is a step in the right direction toward making our skies safer," Schumer said. "After years of delays and foot-dragging we will finally get specific information on the training of all commercial airline pilots."

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