Despite your flippant remark, the fact is if these pilots (Colgan crash) had been either properly trained or experienced (and I don't mean hours necessarily, but experience with those conditions, implied with more hours), there would have been no accident, and at least 48 people would still be alive.
Also, while the study SAID 10,000 hours, if you look at the actual data, there was a drop-off in deaths in the 5000-9999 hour window.
However, above 9999 hours, the death rate increased precipitously, and never returned to the 5000-9999 level.
So it might be that we would be safest if airline pilots flew only cargo until they got to 5000 hours, and were only allowed to fly 5000 hours of commercial, and then they had to go back to cargo.
Of course, that’s putting a lot of faith into a simple study of whether older pilots are riskier or not.
I have no doubt that the pilots in the Colgan crash needed better training, but I do doubt that increasing the minimum hours will correct the problem of lack of qualified training.
Colgan air operated out of Manassas for years, and had a good record. My state senator founded the airline, and they just sold it in the past couple of years.
But there is still the underlying question. If you paid the pilots more, would those people be alive?
And if you raised the price of every commuter flight to pay the pilots more, and 10% of the people stopped flying commuter and instead drove, would MORE or FEWER people be dead today?
I’m sure with sufficiently high-priced tickets, I could ensure that every one of my commuter plane trips was made on a super-safe jet flown by the most experienced pilot in the world.
But I would never want to pay that much to fly, and am willing to even risk DEATH in order to save money on my airline flight. Because the relative risk isn’t as important to me as the absolute risk, and the absolute risk of airlplane flight, EVEN taking into account commuter crashes like the Colgan crash that could be prevented by proper training, is still less than driving a car.