Who Is Training the World's Pilots?

America used to lead the world in aviation, and most of the world's finest commercial pilots learned to fly in America, the American way. But that's no longer true.

Runways and Taxiways at JFK

Let's just be clear: it was the United States Congress, led by Jim Sensenbrenner (Wisconsin's 5th district and chairman of the House Judiciary Committee in 2005) who led the move to shut down foreign pilot training in the United States.  This was his response to 9/11;  he believed that foreigners only come to the U.S. to learn how to fly in order to attack us. Sensenbrenner famously said that he had "never seen a foreigner in his home district, and didn't care if I ever do." 

As a result, Congress imposed work visa and travel restrictions, in addition to limitations on pilot training, that make it all but impossible for a foreign citizen to come to America to learn to fly.  That used to be a big industry for us, as we have cheap fuel and open skies, compared to much of the world.  Or at least we used to have.

Low and slow Asiana hits SFO seawall

As a result, shut off from what was once the best pilot training in the world, the foreign  airlines have gone over to their own ab initio training schools.  They now teach their new airline pilots in places like Abu Dhabi and Singapore instead of Florida and Arizona.  Of course, those pilots' English is not so good after training there.  And let's not mention  the pilot skills of people who have never flown a Cessna 172 at all, but instead who learned all their flight training from books and in simulators. 

Such  a pilot is somewhat may be proficient, but he or she is deficient in experience.  Watch the Asiana flight into the seawall at San Francisco, for example.

Have you ever tried to stall a simulator?  The results are evident if you look at AF 447 -- the poor air France pilots did not even realize they had stalled the aircraft at 36,000 feet.  All they had to do was push the nose down and regain airspeed, something every U.S. student pilot learns to do in a little Cessna.

Now, listen to some Chinese pilots attempting to understand and follow an impatient air traffic controller's instructions at JFK:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AFv48IWhJw

I sympathize with the Air China pilots at JFK.  It's hard enough for me as an American who speaks English to understand what the tower or ground want me to do at a strange and busy airport. Some blame also falls on the parochial controller, who can't seem to think of another way to ask the question, which obviously is not understood.  (The definition of stupidity is doing the same thing over and over while expecting a different result.)

But, let's remember, in the end, it is the U.S. Congress that has screwed up U.S. domestic aviation and flight training.  And that's real stupidity.