California Aviation Accident Lawyers Concerned Over Data Showing 6,100 Problem Airline Pilots

November 13th, 2009

California aviation accident lawyers have been concerned about airplane safety after a recent series of plane crashes left several people dead. Now there has been a growing concern since an investigation into a Federal Aviation Administration database has revealed that there has been more than 6,100 pilots with safety violation issues over the last 10 years.

According to WFAA’s (an ABC television affiliate) investigation  they scrutinized the Federal Aviation Administration database of airline pilots who have been sanctioned. According to the data 6,176 commercial airline pilots have been given warnings or had their licenses suspended or revoked over the past decade.

Aviation safety has been in particular focus in recent weeks, when two Delta Airlines pilots landed their plane on the wrong taxiway instead of the runway at the Atlanta airport. Just a few days later, a Northwest Airlines plane that was supposed to land at Minneapolis, but over shot its destination by several miles. Those pilots claimed that they had been distracted while working on their computers and therefore missed their destination. However, speculation has been rife that the two pilots simply fell asleep in the cockpit, causing them to miss their destination.  Just this month, a United Airplanes pilot in London failed a sobriety test just before boarding the plane. He was arrested on site.

The “drunken flying” incident itself was grave enough to cause serious worry to California plane crash lawyers, but as the FAA database investigation shows, these are not isolated incidents.  According to the database, out of these 6,176 sanctions, approximately 1,500, occurred during the past year. Most of the pilot problems according to the database, were reported to the agency by air traffic controllers. In fact, 2,700 problems were noticed by traffic controllers. 156 pilots managed to fail drug tests, what is even more shocking for California personal injury lawyers, is that close to 600 pilots were sanctioned for DUIs. In at least one case, a pilot was reprehended for failing to land his jet at the nearest airport after one of the engines failed.

Some airlines seem to have high numbers of pilot sanctions. Delta Airlines had the most number of sanctioned pilots at 71, followed by US airways at 69. Northwest Airlines had some of the most disciplined pilots with 15 sanctions. American Airlines was the second safest with 18 sanctions. Southwest airlines rank third with 23 violations.

Better training has managed to diminish the importance of pilot errors as a major contributing factor in airline crashes. However, issues with inexperienced, underpaid and over worked pilots have been cropping up. As the industry tries to cut corners in the bad economy, pilot salaries have suffered, and airlines seem to have been exercising lighter scrutiny of their own pilots. Fatigued, indifferent pilots are a risk to the hundreds of passengers they fly daily. This is one of the reasons why the NTSB has been calling for video cameras in cockpit, a move that have been opposed strongly by pilot unions.

The Reeves Law Group is a law firm with offices throughout California dedicated exclusively to the representation of personal injury victims, including victims of aviation accidents. Please visit our website at trlglaw.com. If you desire a free consultation on a personal injury matter, please call us at (800) 644-8000 or email us.

The Reeves Law Group is not acting as legal counsel for any party in the matters discussed in this posting.

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