The statement that learning to fly "isn't all that difficult" ("In Choosing a Flight School, Check Beyond the Cockpit," Oct. 29) is overly simplistic.
He forgot simple safety checks in the cockpit.
The idea of using checklists was originally developed by the aviation industry to help pilots ensure they made the necessary cockpit checks, reduce complexity and foster teamwork.
We have to turn back because "maintenance needs to check something in the cockpit".
Anything that will allow the pilot to be fully aware of what's going on around them without having to break away from the mission to check something inside the cockpit is likely to improve performance, so will be considered.
Other provisions of the bill call for the inspection of all checked baggage, the reinforcement of cockpit doors and a significant increase in the number of sky marshals.
The captain in the crash outside Buffalo had failed three in-cockpit exams, called "check rides," before he came to Colgan, but Colgan knew about only one.
(In an earlier account, Mr. Hogan had said that a witness smelled alcohol on the pilot when he was in the cockpit doing a preflight check).
Scrappy and his senile grandfather sit in the remains of the cockpit, run the instrument check, flip the ignition switches, and imagine themselves taxiing through the gates of the yard and into the sky.
Civilized societies do not require you give a pilot an alcohol test before entering the cockpit, or to triple check every mechanic maintaining a plane.
The flight, with 144 passengers and 3 flight attendants, made a normal landing, although the police were sent to the gate to double-check that the people in the cockpit were crew, not hijackers.
