Buffalo Crash: 'A Recipe for an Accident'

May 13, 2009— -- Some of the conditions at Colgan Airlines -- and possibly other carriers -- are "a recipe for an accident," a member of the National Transportation Safety Board said today during the second day of a hearing examining the crash of Colgan Air flight 3407 near Buffalo, N.Y. in February.

The turbo prop went down on approach to the airport, killing all 49 on board, and one person on the ground.

The focus today was largely on pilot fatigue, and particularly the fact that the first officer had commuted overnight to her flights in Newark from her home in Seattle.

Have you worked for a regional or commuter airline? If so, ABC News would like to hear from you.

"The question is, knowing the consequences of fatigue, what are the policies that are in place, or were in place, to mitigate fatigue?" NTSB board member Kitty Higgins asked.

"When you put together the commuting patterns ... the pay levels ... I think it's a recipe for an accident, and that is what we have here," Higgins said.

In the cockpit that night were Capt. Marvin Renslow and first officer Rebecca Shaw. Both were based in Newark for Colgan Air, but Renslow commuted from his home in Florida, and Shaw from Washington State.

Neither had living accommodations in Newark, and both were spotted trying to nap on Colgan Air crew room couches the morning of the accident flight.

NTSB board members questioned how the airline would expect first officers such as Shaw -- whose salary was just under $24,000 per year, according to Colgan Air -- to afford a place in Newark to rest.

"I would expect them the way other pilots do, and other pilots have done for many years who commuted in and out of different bases," said Daniel Morgan, Colgan Air's vice president of flight safety. "People do find ways to share rooms, to share apartments."

Morgan agreed with the board, though, that, "many of the things we've heard about (flight) 3407 has been very dismaying and very troubling to us."

It is not uncommon in aviation for pilots to commute to the cities where they are based. NTSB investigators found that at Colgan Air's Newark operations, 93 of the 137 pilots there commuted. Of those, 29 lived more than 1,000 miles from Newark.