Quote:
Originally Posted by slamdunkpro
In light of the revelation that the pilot of the 777 that crashed at SFO had less than 50 hours of actual flight time.
What is the minimum # of actual flight hours required to receive a rating in a particular multi-engine aircraft and who regulates it? The FAA? The airline? the IP?
Some news reports were ambiguous in how they reported this and left the impression that you have repeated here. He had less than 50 hours of flight time
in the 777; he was actually a very experienced pilot:
NY Times report:
Quote:
Mr. Lee, 46, a 19-year veteran with Asiana, has logged more than 9,700 hours of flying, piloting A320s and Boeing 737s and 747s to various destinations, including San Francisco. He had just 43 hours of flying time with Boeing 777s, and had made eight landings with them, in London, Los Angeles and Narita, Japan. He was still on a "familiarization flight" program when he was at the controls Saturday; a senior colleague with more experience landing 777s, including at San Francisco, sat beside him as co-pilot.
Every pilot must get his first hours in a new type and those hours are accumulated during revenue flights (i.e. carrying passengers). When a pilot transitions to a new type, or when he upgrades from First Officer to Captain, he goes through a training program which includes ground school (systems knowledge), simulator training (normal procedures as well as abnormal and emergency situations) and ending with IOE (Initial Operating Experience) which consists of revenue flights with an instructor pilot/check airman riding along in the other seat. IOE will generally be about 20 hours of flight experience for domestic pilots and somewhat more for international pilots.
So...we don't have a "beginner" in the left seat as some news reports have implied. But the thing that really gets me about this new revelation is that the guy flying with him is the IOE check airman and his role is to put the polish on the training curriculum, i.e. to transition this guy from classroom/simulator to the real world. He should be hyper-vigilant and I am really mystified as to how they could have gotten so low and slow. Maybe he didn't notice that the flying pilot had the power back at idle, which results in a delay if you really need additional power quickly (we always keep the engines spooled up during an approach).
It almost seems like there had to be a distraction during this critical phase. I'm really interested in hearing what's on the cockpit voice recorder.