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The statistics used by John Schmeltzer in his article, “FAA data find older hands are steadier” (Page 1, July 11)–incidents per age of pilot–render the piece meaningless.
He should have looked for the truly significant statistic, the incidents per recent hours flown or the “exposure.”
Senior airline pilots fly far fewer hours per year than younger pilots for many reasons. An important reason is that because of seniority they have three to four times more vacation time, and that can add up to several months a year.
A glance at those numbers would show that older pilots, on the basis of hours flown, experience as many or more incidents as younger ones.
I am a 52-year-old major airline pilot looking forward to retirement at 60.
