Pilot Fatigue- FAA is taking notice but are they telling passengers the truth
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FAA Federal Aviation Administration head Randy Babbitt says "It's absolutely unsafe to think" that commuter cockpit crews can fly as many hours or stay on duty for as long as pilots who may fly one long-range and execute a single landing route during the same day. In other words, the rules of flying, some of which have been in place for decades, may be wrong. Passengers probably have no awareness that the pilot and crew of their plane may be on their sixth flight of the day.
Keep in mind that before the first of those six flights, the pilots and crew weren’t tucked in a comfortable bed. According the Washington Post, they were packed into a dark “crash” house with several other commuter airline crew trying to get some shut-eye.
Sleep deprivation and fatigue have long been known to be a dangerous factor in flying. In a National Transportation Safety Board safety study of US major carrier accidents involving flight crew from 1978 to 1990, one finding stated: “Half the captains for whom data were available had been awake for more than 12 hours prior to their accidents. Half the first officers had been awake for more than 11 hours. Crews comprising captains and first officers whose time since awake was above the median for their crew position made more errors overall, and significantly more procedural and tactical decision errors."
Studies show exhaustion can impair a pilot's judgment in much the same way alcohol does. Overtired pilots can focus on a conversation or a single chore and miss other things going on around them, including critical flight information.
There are solutions being worked out, but after the advisory committee on pilot fatigue delivered its recommendations to the Federal Aviation Administration late Tuesday, the FAA asked for them not to be made public. The airlines want to schedule some pilots with less-taxing flights — fewer takeoffs and landings — but for longer, not shorter, hours in the cockpit. The unions say they won't agree to more hours for those pilots in exchange for fewer hours for pilots who fly as many as a half dozen short flights a day or take off at odd times.
In the end, the responsibility will fall on many shoulders. Flight crews know their work schedules and it is ultimately their responsibility, like anybody with a job, to come to work ready to go. The FAA needs to put modern, relevant rules in place that jibe with what science and research has shown are the most tiring or non-tiring flights. The airlines have to make tough choices with an eye on their bottom lines of hiring more crews or risk over-taxing existing crews. But passengers, ultimately, may face the choice of paying higher fares to fund the extra crews that may end up saving their lives.