Pilots are blaming the Covid-19 pandemic for in-flight errors because they have been inactive due to the lockdown, reports Los Angeles Times.
Aviation experts admit that as pilots are out of practice for months, their skills and proficiency gets demoted with time.
The most common errors are coming in “too fast” or “too high” during a landing, and these incidents have been reported by pilots since May.
The first pilot, who forgot to activate the anti-icing mechanism, said in an anonymous report: “Because I had not flown in a few months, I was rusty.”
Richard G McSpadden Jr, senior vice president at the Aircraft Owners also said: “You are not as sharp if you haven’t flown for a while.”
Airlines have significantly decreased the number of daily flights since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic and, in certain cases, have discontinued travel to low-demand destinations.
The number of daily take-offs in the US decreased to about 75% below pre-pandemic levels in April and May of 2020. Recently, the number of take-offs has increased to 43% below pre-pandemic times, industry data shows.
Delta Airlines announced this week that it plans to bring back a total of 400 pilots by this summer in hopes that the Covid-19 vaccines will boost demand for travel.
However, nobody reported any incident of out-of-practice pilots causing accidents that may have injured any passenger.
Indonesia’s transportation safety agency KNKT said that during the Covid-19 pandemic, the operation department had difficulties maintaining pilot proficiency.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) of US bans pilots from flying a commercial jet unless they have performed at least three take-offs and three landings, either on a plane or in a simulator, in the previous 90 days, to prevent uneventful incidents.
James Belton, a captain of Boeing 767 jets and spokesman for the union that represents united airlines pilots, said: “United pilots have met the FAA’s 90-day proficiency policy before going back to work and have not used the grace periods.”
Our pilots only leave our training centre when they are fully trained, comfortable, and ready to fly, he added.
Kenneth P Byrnes, chairman of the flight training department at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, said: “Commercial passenger jets always fly with a pilot and a co-pilot to reduce the odds of pilot error.”
“I’m comfortable with the safety requirements. I don’t think there is an imminent danger.”
To help out-of-practice pilots sharpen their flight skills, the aircraft owners and pilots association recently offered a video series on its website on how to use the radio to connect with an air traffic control tower and advice on making a smoother landing.
American Airlines was also worried about this issue, so it began more frequent reviews of its data on pilot performance.
American Airlines’ senior vice president Kimball Stone said the pilot data from 2020 showed no loss in proficiency.
During the pandemic, planes have been carrying fewer passengers, which means a much lighter load, according to the global director for safety at the International Air Transport Association.
If pilots wrongly assume that the plane they are flying is as heavy as it was before the pandemic, the speed and thrust needed for a landing can be miscalculated, he said.
“If they adhere to standard operating procedures that we practice, I don’t think there is much of an issue.”
According to a NASA report, a pilot mistakenly lined up to land on the wrong runway. Another pilot accidentally pushed the button to disengage the autopilot.
In each case, the pilots and first officers blamed the fact that they were out of practice.
NASA and aviation experts reported several incidents like this in the past few months.