WASHINGTON—Capt. Jason Ambrosi, president of the Air Line Pilots Association Int’l (ALPA), issued the following statement yesterday following the United States Senate hearings on Boeing safety practices:
“We applaud Senators Maria Cantwell (D-WA) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) for holding these important hearings. As airline pilots, we train for life to ensure we protect those who entrust their lives with us, and we take this responsibility very seriously. Thanks to the presence of at least two highly trained pilots on every flightdeck–and our collaboration with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and other aviation stakeholders–we have the safest aviation system in the world. However, we can never take that for granted.
“We must always remain vigilant and look for ways to do better. For example, we must look to improve and strengthen the certification process by increasing human factors considerations and pilot input in aircraft design and continue to provide safety reporting tools so that all employees, regardless of their employer, feel empowered to voice concerns in a nonpunitive environment, free from retaliation. That’s why we welcome the additional scrutiny of these recent events by Congress, the FAA, and the National Transportation Safety Board.”
