That was the life of Rebecca Shaw, first officer of Continental Connection flight 3407, which crashed after stalling in skies above Buffalo, New York.

Tuesday we wrote that the National Transportation Safety Board was focusing its investigations on how much training and experience Captain Marvin Renslow had and whether he was competent enough to pull the airplane out of a stall that he likely caused by allowing the plane to fly at a dangerously slow speed.

Now, in light of the pilots’ working conditions, it seems that their level of training was a formula for disaster. That Colgan Air escaped similar catastrophes before February 12 is a remarkable accomplishment.

Paying pilots $16,000 per year and knowing that they were also commuting across the country to their job, as Shaw did, constituted what the NTSB called “winking and nodding” at safety policies.

Shaw left her parents’ home in Seattle the night before she was scheduled to fly 3407 from Newark to Buffalo. She flew to Memphis on a FedEx airplane and then hopped aboard another FedEx plane for her flight to Newark. According to a report in the New York Times, Shaw told the pilot of one of the FedEx flights that there was “a couch with my name on it” at the Colgan Air pilots lounge in Newark.

Anyone reading this can appreciate Shaw’s work ethic. Who hasn’t graduated college and entered the workforce with youthful ambition, eager to work and succeed? There is nothing wrong with that. There is nothing wrong with doing your time in an entry-level position, earning a salary that holds you at or just below the poverty level. But when people put their lives in the hands of a company by boarding an airplane, they expect qualified, experienced pilots. At the very least they would expect fairly paid, well rested pilots.

But the fact is Colgan Air’s commuter flights were a mill for cheap pilot labor. It’s unfortunate that Renslow wasn’t better trained to handle a stall. And it’s unfortunate that Shaw didn’t know, presumably, what to do in a stall situation either. It’s unfortunate that both pilots weren’t paired as first mates with more experienced, knowledgeable pilots and required to test in simulators the dangrous flight situations that real life experience lacked.

Colgan Air’s vice president for administration, Mary Finnigan, acknowledged the low pay its pilots receive (Can any of its pilots earning $16,000 per year live in the Newark area without living in a government housing project?) and the high turnover, telling the New York Times that the company looked at it as “a stepping stone.”

So the next time you must commute by air, you may want to step over the Colgan Air option until that company addresses the problems that likely contributed to the crash of 3407.

SOURCE: Personal Injury Attorneys › Working conditions may have contributed to Colgan air crash

Serious questions have arisen

Transcripts of the cockpit conversation revealed that Captain Marvin Renslow and first officer Rebecca Shaw were likely not adequately trained and experienced to handle the particular flying conditions they faced. Moreover, the crew may have violated the cockpit rule of refraining from “irrelevant chatter” below 10,000 feet altitude. By following that rule, pilots bring their full attention to flying the airplane.

Renslow and Shaw were discussing their careers when things started to go awry in the cockpit.

According to the transcript, Shaw was telling Renslow about her trepidation of flying in icy conditions less than 5 minutes before the crash. “I’ve never seen icing conditions. I’ve never deiced. I’ve never experienced any of that. I don’t want to have to experience that and make those kinds of calls. You know I’d have freaked out. I’d have like seen this much ice and thought, ‘Oh my gosh, we were going to crash,’” Shaw said.

“Oh yeah, that’s the most I’ve seen … most ice I’ve seen on the leading edges in a long time. In a while anyway, I should say,” Renslow replied.

Michael Barr, an aviation safety expert, told ABC News that the pilots “had academic training, but not simulator training” for the situation they found themselves in.

“I think it’s absolutely necessary that you have simulator training in that type of emergency,” said Barr, who is with the University of Southern California’s aviation safety program. “You can’t expect the pilot to react in a very, very emergency situation if he hasn’t had actual hands-on training in a simulator.”

In March, the National Transportation Safety Board shifted its investigative efforts from the weather and ice as likely causes of the crash. The NTSB then focused on the pilots’ training and experience as likely reasons for the crash.

Data from the flight recorder indicates that the plane was flying dangerously slow just prior to the crash. If a plane moves too slowly, it can lose the airflow or lift over the top of the wing, causing the plane to stall. When the alarm sounded, autopilot pointed the plane’s nose down in an effort to gain speed. However, Renslow countered the autopilot by pulling his column sharply backward, which pitched the airplane’s nose upward. The maneuver baffled investigators as it is the opposite of the action pilots should take in a stall situation.

A look at Renslow’s record showed that the pilot failed 5 flight tests, two of which tested flying skills and judgment, while Renslow was employed by Colgan Air. He failed the other three tests while working to become a licensed pilot.

Investigators are also looking into whether scheduling and fatigue could have played a role in the poor decisions made in the cockpit. Colgan Air defends its pilots and their work experience.

SOURCE: Personal Injury Attorneys › Investigators focus on pilot competency in Buffalo plane crash

According to the report, Pfizer’s smoking-cessation drug Chantix came in for a bit more trouble as a research group cited reports of physical side effects associated with the drug. The FAA, which reviewed the report, barred pilots and air traffic controllers from taking the drug, the WSJ reports.

The Institute for Safe Medication Practices examined adverse-event reports turned into the FDA in the fourth quarter of last year, and found 988 serious health problems reported in association with Chantix use, including seizures and heart trouble.

Pfizer told the WSJ the Institute’s findings are consistent with the drug’s label, which lists many of the events cited in the Institute’s report as “infrequent” or “rare,” and aren’t unusual given that more than five million Americans have taken the medicine.

Up to this point, Chantix has been under scrutiny primarily for potential psychiatric trouble, with reports of agitation and suicidal thinking in some patients. But the drug has remained popular, with sales of $277 million in the first quarter of this year, making it a bright spot for the company.

But Chantix sales growth has slowed lately due to the psychiatric concerns, and the Institute’s report prompted Sanford Bernstein analyst Timothy Anderson to cut his 2012 forecast for the drug’s sales to $700 million from $1.6 billion.

SOURCE: Personal Injury Attorneys › FAA Bans Chantix