“When the 188 passengers boarded the charter plane in Antalya (Turkey) to return to Iceland, on 27 Oct 2007, they did not know that their airplane would experience a serious safety incident – ending up beside the runway of Keflavik airport. Pilot fatigue and inadequate in-flight rest facilities were key factors contributing to this incident – which luckily left all on board unharmed – according to the recently published Incident Report. The report makes several safety recommendations addressed to the EU Institutions. Regrettably, these recommendations are likely to slip off the runway too, when attempting to land on the Brussels Institutions' slippery political ground.”
Euro aviation authorities act in self-interest and on behalf of national authorities, who themselves are about as morally bankrupt as British and Euro MP's.
Fatigue is prevalent amongst pilots and will remain so.
As long as airfare stays low the traveling public do not care ´cause the odds of anything happening to them are still very low! Any politician threatening the possibility of traveling for next to nothing will lose his/her seat Not until we see more fatal accidents will something be done about it, unless we ourselves stop this nonsense! The problem is there is always somebody willing to do anything or accept any t/c´s to be allowed to sit in the pointy end of an aluminium tube and that is dragging the rest of us down the drain!
Well the U.S. Press has been reporting this week about the lack of rest for the Cogan crew involved in the tragic BUF crash . If the travelling public is confronted with the facts about crew fatigue and made to feel scared then the FAA and others will have to do something.
As long as airfare stays low the traveling public do not care
That's a very sweeping statement HC,
1) It's the airlines that set the fares, not the public. The passengers aren't going to complain about low fares are they.
2) The majority of the public assume that the airlines abide by the regulations and that the regulators know what they are doing................ Even if they are wrong.
One of the problems of course is how do you measure a persons fatigue level? To say that after for example 10hrs a pilot becomes dangerous due to fatigue, doesn't take into account the individual's metabolism or their state of well being on any particular day, after all if you pick up a bug you may well become fatigued a lot sooner than normal but you may not, in the early stages, feel unwell.
1) It's the airlines that set the fares, not the public. The passengers aren't going to complain about low fares are they.
green granite, do you really believe the airlines decide the fare or is it maybe the market (pax) that decide? I think the latter beeing that we live in a free market world these days!
I think one of the major contributors to fatigue in the USA are the long distances pilots commute, often immediately before starting their duty cycle. That too should be controlled!
do you really believe the airlines decide the fare
Yes I do, it's called competition, it works like this, 2 airlines fly to the same place and they want your business so they undercut each other to get it. In order to make a profit they have to get the max they can out of their employees. (sorry if that sounds patronizing, it's not meant to be)
The public, of course, want to pay as little as possible for the fare, as I'm sure you do when you buy a new car etc, but in the end if the airline says the ticket price is X then that is what the punter has to pay to get to where he wants to go. Whether or not this leads to a reduction in people flying is debatable.
If the regulators reduced the number of hours a pilot can fly/be on duty then the airlines would have to employ more of them to do the current number of flights, therefore ticket prices would have to go up.
(sorry if that sounds patronizing, it's not meant to be)
Guess I can say the same to You You describe it perfectly: It´s the market that decides what the airlines can charge for the ticket, otherwise they fly with empty seats and eventually go out of business!
Avman - That seems like a very valid point. There's been many comments both here and on other medias about pilots (largely but not exclusively in the US) commuting / jumpseating to and from work for several hours on flights.
How wide spread is this?
It would seem very hypocritical to do this and then blame your employer for all the fatigue suffered. There's obviously an issue with employers stretching / bending / fracturing the laws but commuting across the US to work doesn't lend itself to much sympathy when playing the fatigue card.
Well the U.S. Press has been reporting this week about the lack of rest for the Cogan crew involved in the tragic BUF crash . If the travelling public is confronted with the facts about crew fatigue and made to feel scared then the FAA and others will have to do something.
Don't hold your breath. There have been accidents before, and the FAA has done nothing (Little Rock, Lexington etc.)! At the end they'd have to admit that they had been wrong. What do you expect from (mainly) bureaucrats that think all day about going home at 15.00? Try to explain fatigue to them, I bet they are fully able to relay this feeling. But the Feds will say, you can always call in fatigued and this is their get-out-of-jail free card! When do you start realising that you're fatigued? Usually, when you start screwing up somehow.
The only thing the Feds will do is posing restrictions on commuting which will make QOL for many pilots much worse than it is these days.
Ooops, sorry, it's 15:00 and I am off home ....
Last edited by Squawk7777 : 17th May 2009 at 01:26.
It's interesting that when a pilot shows up to work and is found with alcohol in his/her blood, the industry, regulators, press and public go to town and pillory the individual. But fatigue is as dangerous, far more common and more insidious because although the effects are similar, the individual knows when they have had a drink but often doesn't know they are fatigued until they start making mistakes.
But the regulators and companies are quite happy - indeed encourage pilots to fly when fatigued. Personally, I think I would be more on the ball having had a beer than flying with chronic and acute fatigue. How easy is it to be on top of your game when you've been awake for 22 hours. It's usually OK if everything is going well as modern aircraft tend to protect you. But if anything goes wrong, you are very likely to become a statistic - as the Coglan pilots did.
If there was a reliable and cheap scientific test for fatigue, in the same way as they can test blood alcohol level, you can bet there would be legislation to cover it.
If there was a reliable and cheap scientific test for fatigue, in the same way as they can test blood alcohol level, you can bet there would be legislation to cover it.
Well, there is a reliable and effective way to anticipate fatigue, and that is to have some common sense when planning crews and establishing realistic regulations. But of course that would be too much to ask... No, the writing (by flight crew) is on the wall, but the authorities, the airlines and the public prefer to wait till the inevitable happens.
The airlines have covered themselves legally with al kinds of vague memo's and 'fatigue awareness training' and for the authorities....well, they will probably react in the same way as in the present credit crunch: firmly asleep at the 'protecting the public' switch and blaming greedy managers for anything that goes wrong.
´cause the odds of anything happening to them are still very low! 
Hang on a minute!
Try to explain fatigue to them, I bet they are fully able to relay this feeling. But the Feds will say, you can always call in fatigued and this is their get-out-of-jail free card! When do you start realising that you're fatigued? Usually, when you start screwing up somehow. 
No, the writing (by flight crew) is on the wall, but the authorities, the airlines and the public prefer to wait till the inevitable happens. 
