The dicey situation in which JetBlue captain Clayton Osbon apparently suffered some kind of mental breakdown while commanding a flight from New York to Las Vegas on March 27 raises some important questions. But the incident also is guaranteed to attract a certain type of attention to commercial aviation, that of members of the U.S. Senate and Congress, who think they have to micromanage every aspect of aviation safety.
I fully expect any day now proposed new legislation that instructs the FAA to conduct mental evaluations on every commercial pilot, as part of the medical certification process. Politicians, after all, jumped on the Colgan Air accident, completely ignored all evidence as to what caused the accident and came up with cockamamie legislation forcing the FAA to require that all airline pilots have 1,500 hours minimum flight time (or less with a college degree or military experience). Apparently, the writers of this legislation spent zero time consulting with anyone who knows something about aviation safety; they completely neglected to figure out not only whether the minimum flight time would have helped in the Colgan accident (it would not), how new pilots are supposed to gain 1,500 hours without going bankrupt and whether just logging 1,500 hours of any kind of flying has any safety benefit at all.
Matt Thurber, editor-in-chief at AIN Media Group, has been flying since 1975 and writing about aviation since 1978 and now has the best job in the world, running editorial operations for Aviation International News, Business Jet Traveler, and FutureFlight.aero. In addition to working as an A&P mechanic on everything from Piper Cubs to turboprops, Matt taught flying at his father’s flight school in Plymouth, Mass., in the early 1980s, flew for an aircraft owner/pilot, and for two summer seasons hunted swordfish near the George’s Banks off the East Coast from a Piper Super Cub. An ATP certificated fixed-wing pilot and CFII and commercial helicopter pilot, Matt is type-rated in the Citation 500 and Gulfstream V/550. Based in the Pacific Northwest, Matt and his team cover the entire aviation scene including business aircraft, helicopters, avionics, safety, manufacturing, charter, fractionals, technology, air transport, advanced air mobility, defense, and other subjects of interest to AIN, BJT, and FutureFlight readers.
