And as technology improves — and pilot salaries increase — there's been a controversial move lately by the industry to try to amend what's known as part 121 of the Federal Aviation Regulations.The airlines have been quietly lobbying that the single-pilot approach would quickly solve the staffing problem caused by the pilot shortage and that technology has vastly improved to allow for safe operation of a single-pilot flight.There's language in a new bill now introduced in Congress — the Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization bill — asking the Federal Aviation Administration to reconsider part 121 and to allow the use of a single pilot operation, first in cargo aircraft.A co-pilot of a Germanwings flight locked the pilot out of the cockpit and deliberately crashed the plane, killing himself and 149 other people, giving credence to the ongoing argument that in an airborne crisis you need two pilots working in concert to save the aircraft — as was the case in the "Miracle on the Hudson," when pilots Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger and Jeffrey Skiles successfully ditched a U.S. Airways flight in New York's Hudson River after the plane hit a flock Canada geese on takeoff and subsequently lost power.In any case, more than 40 countries have appealed to an international aviation agency to revise standards globally to give airlines the option for a one-person cockpit crew, so the fight is just getting started."