AIRLINES: Continental's Flaps Flap

On-the-job training is generally a fine technique, but hardly when the job involves piloting an aircraft loaded with passengers. The Federal Aviation Administration last week said it would investigate the training procedures at Continental Airlines after one of the carrier's pilots admitted that on several flights he had made deliberate mistakes prior to takeoff -- like setting the plane's wing flaps in the wrong position and misstating the aircraft's weight -- in order to test the skills and alertness of his copilot.

The revelation came during a National Transportation Safety Board investigation of a Continental DC-9 crash that killed 28 people in Denver last November. In a signed statement, Continental Captain Kenneth Watson said that on another flight a few weeks before the crash, he had conducted a test of Frank Zvonek, who later piloted the ill-fated DC-9. "As is my common practice," said Watson, "I advised Frank that I would intentionally make several mistakes. He caught them and corrected me."

If Watson's statement was intended to show that Zvonek was a good pilot, the FAA was not so much impressed as it was dismayed by the unusual training procedure. Continental said the Watson method was not approved by the company. The carrier intends to find out if any of its other pilots test one another by purposely making mistakes before taking to the air.