Pilots in Buffalo Crash May Have Been Fatigued

The co-pilot in a February airline crash that killed 50 people in upstate New York was paid a salary so low that she was living with her parents in Seattle and commuting across the country to her job, according to testimony Wednesday.

Airline officials acknowledged at the hearing that Shaw, 24, was paid at a rate of about $23 an hour. They did not dispute an NTSB investigator who said she made $16,254 a year, although she could have earned more if she worked extra hours.

Shaw worked for the airline — Colgan Air Inc. of Manassas, Va., which operated the flight for Continental — for a little more than a year and worked a second job in a coffee shop when she was first hired.

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Other adjustments can be more painful, especially for travelers used to ordering up the company plane. After years of flying privately, with special meals and attentive service, they find themselves in unfamiliar public territory.

That was true for Mr. Henderson, who like other auto industry executives was stung by a Congressional rebuke last fall, when it emerged that they traveled in their private planes to Washington to seek a bailout. “It’s almost like seeing a guy show up at the soup kitchen in high hat and tuxedo,” said Representative Gary L. Ackerman, Democrat of New York, at the time.

G. M., Ford and many other companies have since rid themselves of their jets, to save face or money or both. And the situation has presented an opportunity not just for big airlines, but also for low-fare ones like JetBlue Airways.

The company has made a special effort to court business travelers in the last year, through an advertising campaign and a tongue-in-cheek instruction manual, posted on its Web site. It promises: “JetBlue’s fares start at very low prices. Let’s just say, they’re way, way, way less than the $5,300 an hour you used to pay for your private jet.”

6 air crashes, and he walked away!

Word Productions releases book by Gary Jenkinson “I Never Fly Alone” May 2009.

Gary gives a recount that is both dramatic and exciting, confirming the supernatural power of God to protect him…to protect US!…to provide divine interventions in a life!

Gary is a commercial airplane and helicopter pilot as well as a flight instructor in single and multi-engine airplanes. He also has an instrument license in airplanes and has a seaplane rating. “Aviation is a great medium from which to draw and teach Christian truths. There are so many disciplines involved in aviation that are the same as those in our spiritual lives with God. For instance, things like patience, trust, stick with it, do not panic, try again, practice, no fear, and many others.”

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