ALPA and US lawmakers ask ICAO to review pilot training standards

The largest US pilots' union and US lawmakers have urged civil aviation agency ICAO to review its global pilot training standards – requests coming in a wake of two deadly Boeing 737 Max crashes. In requesting the review, the Air Line Pilots Association and lawmakers have not taken heat off Boeing but have suggested better pilot training standards may be needed. Controversy about the degree to which pilot actions contributed to the crashes has simmered since the two accidents, as have questions about a fast-track ICAO commercial pilot license called the "multi-crew pilot license" (MPL). "Recently I wrote a letter to… the secretary general of the International Civil Aviation Organisation asking for a global review of pilot training qualification standards," ALPA president Joe DePete told lawmakers on 17 July during a House Transportation Committee aviation safety hearing. DePete mentioned the MPL, which requires no minimum cockpit hours. Rather, holders must have 240 hours of simulator or cockpit time and a private pilot license, which can be obtained with as little as 40 hours of flying. Ethiopian Airlines, which operated one of the crashed 737 Max, is among carriers to have adopted the MPL standard, though it has not said if the less-experienced copilot of its crashed aircraft had an MPL. Investigators have said the copilot had 361 hours total flight experience. MPL pilots are "essentially apprentice pilots, requiring the captain to overcome any training and experience shortcomings", says DePete's testimony. Story has more.<br/>