I'm Not a Pilot, But I Play One In a Video Game

This post isn't going where you thought it was, so the fasten seatbelt sign has been lit. Brace yourself for some harsh facts. It's going to be a bumpy flight.

As the title says, I'm not a pilot. But, I do hang out with a group of pilots thru a World War II fighter sim. The message boards these pilots hang out on really let you get to know the flight community, older professional pilots with military experience and the new wannabes or "squeakers" with only civilian experience working their way up thru the ranks. After hanging out with these guys for 10 years I've learned a few things.

The general impression the public has of a commercial airline pilot is the ad agency profile shot of the smiling professional in their freshly pressed uniform and a twinkle in their eye. They think pilots ride the gravy train with biscuit wheels working a few hours a month and living a luxurious lifestyle.

The truth is like an alternate universe. Many commercial passenger pilots actually earn less than your average rock hauler (to put it into a Wise County format). Unless you are a senior pilot with a major airline, the wages, benefits and working conditions are less than that of an entry level OTR truck driver or bus driver. But driving an 18-wheeler, driving a Greyhound and being PIC are very different things.

The job market is flooded with pilots.

That leads to what happened to Rebecca Shaw — who co-piloted Continental Flight 3407, which crashed in February near Buffalo, N.Y., killing 50 people. As Co-Pilot she earned an annual salary of just $16,200 at regional carrier Colgan Air.

The co-pilot in an airline crash that killed 50 people in upstate New York was paid a salary so low that she lived with her parents near Seattle and commuted across the country to her job, a combination of long travel and little money that a safety official called a "recipe for an accident."

Shaw, 24, had worked for Colgan Air of Manassas, Va., which operated the flight for Continental, for 13 months, flying 774 hours in her first year. Colgan pays its beginning first officers $21 an hour, which means she would have earned $16,254 that year, although she could have earned more if she worked more hours, said Roger Cox, an NTSB aviation safety expert.

In questioning Colgan officials, Cox suggested that Shaw was commuting from her home near Seattle because she couldn't afford to live in the New York metropolitan area on her salary. She had a second job in a coffee shop when first hired.

Colgan spokesman Joe Williams initially declined to disclose Shaw's salary, but he said the airline's starting first officers typically earn around $24,000. Late Wednesday he said Shaw's salary was $23,900.

The night before the accident, Shaw flew overnight as a passenger from Seattle, changing planes in Memphis, to report to work at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey. She also complained about congestion and may have been suffering from a cold.

Renslow, 47, commuted to Newark from his home near Tampa, Fla. It is unclear where Renslow, who was in the middle of a two-day assignment, slept the night before the trip, but he logged into a computer from Colgan's crew room in Newark at 3 a.m. on the day of the flight, according to NTSB documents.

Daniel Morgan, Colgan's vice president for flight safety, said the airline industry has a long history of flight crews commuting long distances to report for work.

Morgan said it is appropriate that the airline sometimes schedule pilots to be on duty up to 16 hours at a stretch with a maximum of eight hours of flight time.

"It's not an ideal way to work, but neither is working overnight in the post office," Morgan said.

Paul Rice, vice president of the Air Line Pilots Association, said airlines — especially regional airlines, where salaries for less senior pilots are lower — have "defaulted to a position that pilots will commute."

"People can't go live in these major cities, or even in the suburbs of these major cities, at $16,000 to $17,000 a year," Rice said.

This is not an isolated incident. There are thousands of low hour, overworked, underpaid pilots out there looking for that shot at the big leagues and big money. In the meantime they slave away as your life is in their hands and we are letters going thru the post office at 3am.