If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. That was the message Washington recently sought to convey. At a carefully orchestrated press conference, lawmakers gathered to oppose efforts that “weaken” current air safety laws: laws that in their view, help keep Americans safe.
At issue is what is commonly known as the 1500-rule. Passed in 2010, it requires that American pilots have at least 1500 hours of flying experience before ferrying and cargo passengers around. They previously needed 250 hours. Regional airlines, already struggling to find qualified pilots, want the rule relaxed to help boost recruitment.
Some lawmakers oppose the plan citing concerns over passenger safety. They point out that in the two decades before the rule’s passage, airline accidents killed 1100 people. That figure has since dropped to zero. The skies are – we are told – safer because of government intervention.
But this is merely a case of lies, damn lies and statistics. For one thing, the government’s own data shows only a minority of airplane accidents involve pilots with fewer than 1,500 hours on the job. More importantly, airplane accidents are rare - so rare in fact that linking any drop in crash fatality rates to government intervention alone is misleading at best and a pseudo-scientific claptrap at worst.
Efforts to gloss over these facts are hardly surprising. Washington often touts the virtues of evidence-based policy making but conveniently ignore that evidence when it doesn’t agree with a political agenda (or those of the electoral landscape).
Special interest groups are no different. The Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) – which backs the 1500-hour rule – stated that lawmakers who oppose it will be, “responsible for endangering the flying public.” Yet, ALPA itself has resisted some of the most important safety initiatives of our lifetime, when its members’ ‘privacy’ was on the line.
Those challenging the 1500-hour rule aren’t faultless either. Regional airlines for example, rightly note that raising the experiential bar further burdens an industry that is already far too regulated. But that’s the wrong argument for a public who, after years of mistreatment (think United’s recent passenger dragging fiasco), have grown distrustful of corporate motives.
A more persuasive argument is that spending more time in the cockpit doesn’t make you a better pilot. The National Transportation Safety Board agrees. Before the 1500-hour rule went into effect, the independent agency noted that, “total flight hours . . . does not necessarily equate to the level of knowledge, skills and professionalism required for consistently safe flight operations.” Lawmakers approved the rule anyway.
Serving the public interest means supporting legislative proposals backed by hard data. Lawmakers should accept – given the available evidence - that the 1500-hour rule does nothing to improve air safety. Believing that it does amounts to wishful thinking: the equivalent of hoping that more time spent parking your car will make you better at driving on the highway. Washington says it cares about evidence-based policy making. It’s time to act like it.
