(FORTUNE Magazine) – The nail-biting crash landing of Piedmont Airlines flight 1489 showed once again that air safety can be as simple as proper maintenance. But just as air travel is surging, airlines face a shortage of mechanics who know what proper maintenance is. In the Piedmont incident, a rubber wheel block used to keep a parked plane in place somehow lodged in the left landing gear of a Boeing 737 bound from Washington, D.C., to Charlotte, North Carolina. With one gear crippled, the jet made an emergency landing in Greensboro. No one was injured. The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating whether a mechanic or ground-crew member left the block in the plane's wheel well. What's worrisome is that the airlines are hiring mechanics with less experience. As veterans retire at increasing rates and air traffic surges -- it's projected to double by the year 2000 -- airlines are getting desperate. The Future Aviation Professionals of America, a career information service in Atlanta, projects a U.S. need for 50,000 mechanics over ten years to supplement and replace retirees among the 63,000 now working. In the past year alone, airlines hired 9,200. Historically, half the people studying aircraft mechanics switch to other fields where the pay is equal or better -- and there is no gnawing fear of making a mistake that results in a plane crash. Major airlines used to demand three to five years of experience. Now they are hard pressed to find rookies with any experience at all. To lure candidates, they are quietly abandoning the two-tier pay system they introduced several years ago to cut costs. Airlines with low pay or labor troubles have to be especially aggressive. Continental Airlines, whose parent company, Texas Air -- led by Frank Lorenzo -- has waged bitter battles with the unions, will pay premiums up to $2 an hour on starting pay of $11 an hour.