certificate disapprovals involving flight checks. the captain did not initially pass flight tests with the instrument flight trading in a october 1991. the commercial pilot's certificate may have to dozens to, and the more thai in some certificate in april 2004. in each case with additional training the captain subsequently passed the test. now recognizing that, you know, not every pilot is going to the pass various flight tests on the first attempt. my question is, what is the general pass fail percentage when it comes to estimate flights, ratings, a commercial pilot certificates, and will tie-ins and certificates? >> i can't give you the specific metric. perhaps the minister during have a better idea. before i turn it over to the administrator, if that's okay with you, one of the issues we are particularly concerned about is that the carriers themselves should have the ability when comparing new hires and candid

it's to say, here is somebody who seems to demonstrate less than adequate proficiency over a period of time, and here is another candidate that seems to be demonstrating a much better proficiency. that is the individual i want to have in my airline. as i indicated earlier in my testimony we believe that some changes could do much to improve that situation. i'll give you the magic's. >> thank you. yes, sir. as a rule of thumb, you know, the carrier, the inspector, the principal operation inspector would be reviewing the trading that is ongoing in an airline. he began to see a failure rate in the 80% -- if it got worse than 80 percent success he would be talking to that carrier about revisions to the training process. so that is just kind of a rule of thumb. this is written tests.

that means, you know, if they are getting 75, they are passing. something is wrong. they are not getting the training. we need to reevaluate, and they need to reevaluate their training curriculum. >> do you have a percentage? and actual percentage on each of those various tests? >> no, the carrier's -- i tell you from experience is much higher than that. but that would -- that would set off an alarm. an inspector with second this is not acceptable. if the majority of your pilots, you know, are reflecting this in their testing, then a your instruction technique is lacking. and let's reevaluate. you're asking it to them. it's either not being presented to them properly. there is something wrong. the format, the training, the techniques. something would be wrong, and it would be revalued. i can tell you that in reality

if you go out, the inspector general did an audit that think you would find, and i think you will find that the strain numbers are considerably higher. they take this very seriously. i think it is worth noting, too, there is probably no profession out there that gets tested more than airline pilots. typical captain assuming he is on one airplane will take two physicals a year, three check rides, one that tests his proficiency. this is a lot of testing that goes on. they are certainly being well scrutinize, and they are scrutinized by their peers with professional standards and of the feedback mechanisms. >> senator, if i may, just for a moment. mr. babbit has referred to his service on the independent

review team under then secretary peters. one of the findings was that there was an unambiguous commitment to the core issue of safety. that has been my experience, as well, since the time i have been ig and observing faa in action. a follow-on observation of the independent review team, there was a remarkable degree of variation in regulatory ideologies among steel office staff, which could result in a e variances and possible errors in regulatory decision making. in fact, there is no faa standard referring to failures that he described. mr. babbit, of course, is director and he says that faa inspectors have a wide degree of degree of latitude. expected to exercise significant judgment. we will find from office to office inspected to inspector, carrier to carrier significant variations. nine offices will explore those

fax in acts in more detail. >> my understanding is, though, and you talked about possible amendments. does not require an airline to retain faa records of failed flight checks. and the faa does allow airlines the ability to have pilots sign the privacy waivey so that this information can be shared with prospective employers. but the faa has said such a process would be time-consuming and controversial. so i am curious to know. it seems to me, at least, that that info being shared from the carrier to another prospective employer would be of very practical consideration and something that i wouldn't think would be overly time-consuming and controversial. >> i wouldn't disagree with you at all. the pilots' records act allows

and, in fact, requires that the hiring terrier did the look back. i think this instance and these cases are shining a pretty bright light. there is a gap to my knowledge. and i will, you know, stand corrected and provide you the correction if i'm wrong. i believe we have an advisory circulars that suggests the carriers should ask for the pilots faa records. the pilot does, because of privacy act restrictions, have to ask for a waiver. if i were hiring pilots and i ask you to give me a waiver so that i could look at your faa certificate axes of the past and he denied it by adding it would raise my eyebrows. >> it seems to me, mr. chairman, that that may be one part of any proposals to reform that stat sheet that makes sense. >> they keep. and thank you all very much. >> that you very much. we did talk about that a bit early. i think we have to propose some

legislation that fixes that. let me ask mr. babbit. if, in fact, the recommendation had been made -- you weren't there, but the ntsb had made the recommendation to the faa two years ago. >> the recommendation was actually made a number of years ago. but an advisory secular came out, to their credit, which suggested that this can be done by having the waiver signed. we would like to see it. >> we understand that you conducted a signature on a waiver form. you had recommended, i believe, that the faa to of rulemaking and proceed to allow an easy access to the complete records of the pilots just as they have easy access to the complete records of the airplane. i would ask the question, based on your knowledge of the culture of the faa why a couple of years after that recommendation was

made with the faa not have initiated the rule making. >> to be honest with you, i can't answer that. i don't know what they didn't. oh certainly look into it, and possibly get the information back to you. >> of all the issues your the one that just is killed with common sense is you ought to know the same about the pilot that you know the same. yet we don't. it is not as if we don't know that doesn't exist. the ntsb has said it doesn't. we should make it accessible to the airlines. the captain, as you know, head of flight crew disapprovals of the private pilot estimates, the pilot private estimates check. i assume it is. commercial pilot initial. the commercial model engine 87. it is the first. so does must be the five failures. the point is that commuter

airline that hired this captain did not know this information. they have indicated to us they did not. they were not aware of this. the other question is mr. rosenker, you have stressed several times today that the investigation is not complete. i understand that. having read a lot of what the ntsb has done and learned, it's pretty impressive to me. what is the that you have to learn to back at this stage of the investigation it appears to me that you are well down the road. so what remains that you expect to learn >> senator, mr. chairman, we actually only yesterday and did before yesterday were getting to the simulator where we could find those same parameters and same patterns, the same actions to understand more about the human performance factor and the aircraft performance factor.

there is analysis going on at this moment. read literally sent to accrue to that simulator to enable us to understand more of what happened in that cockpit. their is a good deal of analysis which still must be done if we are going to cross every t and down every night. that is what we do in our investigations. >> why are you only able to get in the simulator in june. >> we just finished a public hearing on this. we go through of process, which, in fact, takes us to various stages of an investigation. so in this particular time its when we could put everything that we have learned from our public hearing into what we needed to do and test in the simulator. >> mr. scovel -- thank you. mr. scovel, you mentioned something, i think, that is likely not related to this particular issue. it may well be related.

certainly is related to safety. the issue of outsourcing maintenance. tell me, again, your testimony about that and your judgment about it. the reason i ask the question is you suggested that the evidence is that there is a greater outsourcing of maintenance among commuters then the major carriers. although what i have -- what i have understood about major carriers is that an increasing amount of their maintenance is now outsourced. >> you are correct, m r. chairman. major carriers are outsourcing an increasing amount of all of their maintenance whereas formerly they did it in-house. among regional carriers our research says that among 50% of maintenance needed by regional carriers is now being outsourced. my office says examined out source maintenance in 2003 and 2005, 2008, a key finding of ours is that the new risk-based

safety oversight system for repair stations initiated by faa in 2005 is currently ineffective in our judgment due primarily to the fact that the faa has not yet got a handle on exactly what type of maintenance, how much maintenance, and where it's being conducted, when it's being outsourced. until it gathers the data and is able to feed it into this risk-based system it will be able to assign its inspector resources where it's needed. >> mr. scovel, in a book i wrote i described maintenance by one large carrier. one of the carriers, i should say, in this country. they would fly an empty 320 airbus from the u.s. to el salvador to do the maintenance and fly an and c-span.org 20 back.

the terms and order contracts and maintenance in detroit or chicago. >> there are a number of factors that go into faa inspection of repair stations wherever they are located, sir, whether in the united states or overseas. if it is a certificate repair station faa has much wider latitude in order to go in and inspect. if it is not cert companies may still use it. faa may still inspect, but it won't be by inspectors dedicated to the inspection of that facility. rather it will be by inspectors who are calling airlines use of that facility, and they will follow the aircraft into that repair facility in order to do their inspections. it results in no more tenuous inspection trail, if you go, sir. the conclusion of my office over

the years has been really that the key point is not where the of source maintenance -- where the bandits is conducted, whether it's in the u.s. or overseas. but the quality of faa oversight over the process. >> i am, perhaps, going to ask you more about that at some other occasion. i know you have done some work on it. i'll be interested in evaluating that. that me talk for just a moment with all of you again. i think fatigue likely plays some role here in a crash that is prominently mentioned during this hearing. and let me put up, again, the chart that -- let me put it on an easel. i want to especially asked mr. babbit about that. you say you committed for ted fe years. the one with the description of

the commuting. the map. the one with the map. thank you. that shows -- and, again, this perhaps was show the same kind of thing for virtually any commuter airline that we would talk about. perhaps the same map for any major trunk carrier. with most of you agree with that? and i think the question that remains in the minds of many as is evidenced by the questions today for members of the committee, does this matter, does it make a difference? and if several pilots are in seattle or portland or los angeles or wherever and fly to the east coast to start their duty station and start their work is fatigue something that we should be concerned about? and you indicated that as a conscientious pilots you would go early. you check into a motel or wherever, and you did your best. and i understand that and

applaud that. it is clear to me, however, that is probably not likely going to be the case with someone who is a new hire that is making $20,000 a year to go find a place to rent. the reason i ask this question is i fly all lots. a lot of airlines. i have sat next to a lot of crewmembers you are flying to get to their duty station. some cases very long distances. has this ever been discussed at the faa? has there ever been an effort to decide, does this contribute to fatigue in a way that is significant enough to want to do more than just as people, you are on your own. we are going to expect you to have adequate rest of land that is about all we can do. is there something more than that that exists? because it starts with the question i asked at the front end of this hearing. was this circumstance in this cockpit a complete anomaly or is

it referencing symptoms that we should be concerned about? >> well, i think it is clearly based on -- i'll assume some factual locations of where people live. i wouldn't -- i think what we are focused on here is people who didn't professionally deal with what they should have. in other words, they did not have the adequate rest that the professional would suspect they should. it doesn't mean that those people -- most of them weren't doing it the right way. they were coming in the night before. i don't know. >> is that the key? >> we don't know. ridge we don't know. none of us know. as the reason i ask the question. >> and different carriers have different methodology. i know some of the cargo operations, they really don't care where your based. they will buy you a hotel room. the expected to come in that before. they will pay for the hotel room. that is the solution. they don't want their pilots' fatigue. that is the solution. again, i want to go back to that

is exactly why we are bringing everybody in. if this is going on and there are better ways to do it we need to know about it and we need to know about it now. >> you're bringing them in next monday? >> systems are. >> we talked yesterday about that, and it makes a lot of sense to me. we should address the issue. you obviously have been looking at this issue. >> we have concerns about commuting. we want to make sure that both management and the pilots have a responsible -- a responsible outlook on how this can be done in s safe and efficient way. the reality of life is these people are going to live where they wish to live. many of these don't exist within would like to live and some are in very, very high, high economic cities where, in fact, it costs a fortune to try to buy a home or rent an apartment. the business of and the practice

of commuting has been around since commercial aviation. pilots are allowed to pretty much get inexpensive, if not free transport any time they wish. so we realize this is a fact of life. and what we are trying to strive for is the most safe way we can get there. because we can't ignore it. but we have made recommendations to the faa concerning fatigue. fatigue is a very serious condition. in many times people won't even know they are petite intel unfortunately it is too late. so we are hoping that the faa will be taking our recommendations and incorporating them into some regulations. we believe, if implemented it would go a long way to reducing the insidious effects. >> about 50 percent of the flights representing about 20 percent of the passengers.

>> 50% of the flights by commuters. you have a data that is accessible with respect to accidents in the last 10 years of commuters versus carriers. >> i don't have that handy. we could get that if you wish. >> the reason i ask the question is my understanding is it is somewhere around seven of the most recent nine accidents were accidents with commuter carriers. does that sound reasonable to you? >> that may not be including the three accidents that we are investigating right now which include the hudson river, which include denver 737. these were not fatal, but there were major air carrier, major hull lost. of course now the air france that we are participating with the french authorities. >> we should say that we are discussing this through the lens of the tragedy boy and understand always that is the

case. the tragedy existed in the cockpit, as well. in some ways i feel bad about talking to to people who flew to can't represent themselves es ad yet we are very concerned. all of us are very concerned about what happened and what could have been done differently and what we can do to make certain that others aboard airplanes understand there are things we can learn from this crash. one final question. you will, no doubt, appear before this committee many, many times. i understand that when you are asked whether you have sufficient funding at the faa i believe most witnesses are instructed to support whatever the president's budget request is. the last person i recall who came to the congress, one of the committees that i was on. the president's budget request is far inferior and far short of what is needed for his agency. he was fired the next morning

publicly in a great show of strength. so i understand you must say that you have all the money you need. yet a couple of the witnesses have suggested that he might well need some additional funding to employment in assuming that you that you havel and the agency as the will to implement the things that are necessary ry and to enforce what is necessary to enforce. so we will talk with you don't have a microphone in front of you about those issues. >> all right, sir. >> i do say that when you come back here i am going to ask the same question after you have had a couple of weeks. at the begun of rulemaking on that, which the ntsb suggests? there is no excuse in my judgment for the faa to wait another month to begin of rulemaking to make certain that all the records of a pilot are available immediately and now to a potential employer of that pilot. that ought to happen now, and i will ask you the next time you are here whether the rule making has started. i hope he will consider that a priority. >> if you don't invite me back for at least a week the answer will be yes.

>> did you very much. let me thank the four of you for appearing. we will have a discussion with the airlines and some other witnesses in addition to the airlines. this is, as i said in a serious subject. in many ways as is probably always the case these subjects are most aggressively and often discussed when they are born of tragedy. our heart goes out to those who are involved in the tragedy and those who love them and, we just hope that through these discussions we will make progress in protecting others. and i want to end it the way i started this, to say that we have an unbelievable safety record in this country with air travel. but that ought not suggest any of us. i know enough for having studied this that there are a lot of recommendations out there that are not yet implemented, and i don't want the next airplane tragedy to be one in which we discussed a recommendation that we knew about but was never implemented. we can do better than that, and

should. at least my stewardship of this subcommittee will push and push very hard to implement that which we know can save lives. did you very much for him being here. this hearing is adjourned. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> tonight on c-span the house commerce oversight subcommittee talks to gm and chrysler has about why they are closing auto dealerships and gets reaction from several dealers who are being closed. here is a portion.

>> was discontinuing really necessary for chrysler's survivor? the answer is absolutely yes. today's automotive industry cannot support the number of dealers currently in the marketplace. we have gone from 17 million new vehicle sales in 2006 to less than 10 million today. as a whole the chrysler dealer network is not profitable and not viable. >> i would like to mention to the committee the human element of these actions by gm and chrysler. nearly 90 souls depend on carlyle for their existence. with our closing these people will be suggested to serious economic hardship. i have had numerous offers to sell my business. i have had that right take away. my family will be left with a single-purpose dealership facility with the tenant. this is senseless. my grandfather paid from his labors. my father paid my grandmother for carlyle chevrolet for his efforts. it took me nearly 20 years to pay my parents for carlyle

chevrolet. it took gm and chrysler 24 hours. >> members of the house commerce oversight committee questions the head of gm and chrysler about their decision to close dealers. see the full hearing tonight at 8:00 eastern on c-span. >> every weekend the latest nonfiction books and authors on the c-span'2 book tv. saturday on after words how to you run for congress with $7,000 your

>> i don't know where the money comes from. >> contributions from donors. >> how is c-span funded? thirty years ago. america's cable companies created c-span as a public service. no government mandate, no government money. >> to a house hearing on a single-payer health care where the government would pay for health services. witnesses included michigan congressman john conyers has authored a bill on single payer health care. rob andrews of new jersey chairs this hour 40 minute hearing of

the education and labor subcommittee on health. [inaudible conversations] >> good morning, ladies and gentleman. welcome to the subcommittee. having determined we would proceed we would like to welcome our colleagues who are present this morning. ladies and gentlemen who would be witnesses and the members of the public and the press. it is great to have you with us. the united states is spending more of our national wealth, more of our business firms i ncome, more of our family and individual income on health care than any of our industrial competitors anywhere in the world. and i do think there is an emerging consensus we are not getting what we are paying for. we are not getting the quality

that everyone wants and deserves, and we are certainly not getting the coverage that everyone wants and we believe deserves. there are too many people left out of our system. there is too much money spent within our system on other than providing health care to people spend on what many of us feel is wasted expenditures. at the president's urging the country and the congress have embarked upon a broad national debate about how to fix that problem. and i would like to commend members of both parties in both the house and even the senate, even the senate for moving beyond a simple recitation of the country's problems to a robust debate about the proposed solutions to those problems. it is long overdue. we believe that legislating on those solutions is long overdue