FAA Proposal Targets Stall Recovery After Deadly Crash

By ANDY PASZTOR

Federal aviation regulators released draft recommendations detailing measures to prevent airline pilots from flying aircraft too slowly and risking the onset of dangerous aerodynamic stalls, such as the one that caused a much-publicized 2009 crash near Buffalo, N.Y., that claimed 50 lives.

The Federal Aviation Administration's document, released on Tuesday, pulls together a wide range of recommended practices for training pilots to avoid and recover from hazardous stall situations. Although the recommendations are still preliminary, the so-called advisory circular spells out for the first time in one place uniform recovery standards for pilots, training instructors, simulator providers and other segments of commercial aviation.

The preliminary recommendations, which incorporate suggestions from aircraft manufacturers, industry associations, pilot unions and safety groups, represent the FAA's most focused response yet to the crash of a Colgan Air Inc. turboprop two years ago. The crash sparked both public and congressional outcry over inadequate pilot knowledge and training in responding to stall dangers.

Many of the FAA's recommendations are likely to become binding over the next few years.

The Colgan cockpit crew lost track of the plane's speed as it approached the airport, prompting the captain to yank sharply on the controls to raise the nose of the slow-moving Bombardier Q400. The proper response is to push forward on the yoke to recover from a stall.

An aerodynamic stall occurs when a plane's speed drops, allowing the wings to lose lift. Under those circumstances, pilots can't maintain controlled flight.

The FAA document stresses "growing concern within the FAA and industry" about professional pilots losing control of aircraft in such situations, often due to "inappropriate reaction to the first indication of a stall."

The FAA said it found "significant evidence" of lapses by U.S. airline crews in realizing and properly reacting to the "insidious onset" of a stall under both manual and autopilot flight controls. To enhance safety, the FAA proposed formally endorsing the conclusions of various and national and international safety groups that stress the importance of immediately lowering an aircraft's nose when confronting a stall.

Regulators believe training should include simulator sessions during which pilots learn to cope with the "startle factor" of a dangerous stall event that occurs without warning.

The document emphasizes that it's acceptable to lose altitude during a recovery maneuver. "At no time should minimum altitude loss be a criterion for successful demonstration of" stall prevention or recovery maneuvers, according to the agency.

In the past, flight instructors tended to stress recovery with barely any loss of altitude.

The FAA also wants pilots to get more ground school instruction about the aerodynamic principles that can lead to stalls. Unlike many earlier training programs that often targeted stall-recovery techniques at relatively low altitudes, the agency is now urging that pilots practice such maneuvers at high altitudes using more-realistic scenarios.

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