In a written statement submitted to the US FAA, the American Airlines pilots have warned that Boeing’s draft training proposals for the grounded 737 Max 8 models are of no good and they don’t address their concerns well.
The pilots at the American Airlines are being represented by the Allied Pilots Association (APA), American Airlines Inc Group is a Texas based firm and is one of the world’s largest airline which boasts of having 24 Max 8 planes in its fleet.
Boeing’s 737 Max 8 planes have been grounded in March following two deadly crashes involving Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines because of a technical issue with the max 8 models. Boeing is now awaiting a regulatory approval from regulators across the world for its final software upgrade that is supposed to fix this technical issue. Apart from having a software fix, the plane-maker also has a draft training package in place for the pilots designed by an FAA appointed board of pilots, engineers and other experts who feel that pilots only require additional computer related training to understand the technical issue rather than having simulator sessions.
Boeing’s Annual meeting is scheduled today (Monday) in Chicago, the protesters and shareholders are likely to question the safety of the Max 8 planes in the brief meeting.
The Allied Pilots Association (APA) is not convinced with the current draft training package that Boeing has in place for the pilots, it argues that mere computer training “will not provide a level of confidence for pilots to feel not only comfortable flying the aircraft but also relaying that confidence to the traveling public.”
The APA feels that apart from computer training the training package should include videos of simulator sessions showing how MCAS works along with illustrations of other common cockpit emergencies.
APA also stressed the importance of having recurring training on simulators which include real time scenarios like those experienced by Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines during the crashes.
“When pilots visually experience the failure modes and then apply them, the lesson is cemented in their minds.” APA wrote.
Meanwhile other countries like Canada, Europe and South Korea are all looking at this idea of simulator training seriously and may implement it to gain confidence of the pilots and public in the grounded Max 8 models across the world.
The required simulated training could delay the un-grounding of the Max 8 planes further because it requires a lot of time to schedule all the concerned pilots in the training simulator sessions. Hourly rates for simulator sessions range from $500 to $1000 not including travel expenses.
