Over-tired pilots 'falling asleep on duty'; BALPA Survey
It Staggers Me!
Why, oh why, do we have to keep reinventing the wheel?
According to my father, lots of research into the effects of fatigue was done by the late Hugh Ruffel-Smith who was an AME at Farnborough I believe. I do not have access to the Belgrano to check in the library but did find some info a while ago but correct me if I am wrong on the following:
One of the things he did was to follow what was then BEA and BOAC crews around on flights following their rosters and the operation itself. I believe he initially proposed a point system which took into account even things like the number of RT calls and of course the obvious stuff like the number of sectors, time of day/night etc. I am assuming that CAP 371 is in a large part based on his research and it would be interesting to know if anyone knows if this assumption is correct?
He also did work with NASA monitoring performance of crews in simulators after they had been deliberately fatigued and measured the impairment in their performance.
Most of us now know that 24 hours without sleep is the same as a couple of pints in terms of our ability to judge and operate machinery, cars and dare I say it, an aircraft.
It is well documented what can lead to cumulative fatigue, where even if you have not actually been awake for 24 hours the effect is the same or worse. I can remember one summer flying charter with loads of roster changes, where I was standing in my kitchen early evening and people were talking to me and I realized I had not got a clue what was going. A few years later the company introduced blocked rosters which meant virtually no changes to one's published roster. I was shocked to find when I filled out my logbook one month, that I had done 98 hours in a month yet I did not feel tired. Having a stable roster allowed me to at least plan my life and my rest.
My current company supposedly operates to CAP371. We supposedly have an FRMS system in place. However, we do not have blocked rosters and roster changes are frequent. It says in CAP 371 that "rest periods between 18 and 36 hours should be avoided", yet this is the most common rest period. I believe partly as s result of this a lot of my colleagues are exhausted.
It seems the gist of the EASA proposals are if a company has rosters that are "green lighted" by the companies own FRMS that has been "green lighted" by EASA, then no further intervention is required by legislation or rules by EASA. If we did not have legislation, we would still have kids down coal mines and allowing a company to operate rosters in accordance with its own FRMS is to my mind a bit like putting the wolf in charge of the sheep! Honorable MOP please note!
We already knew what would lead to fatigue 40 odd years ago and it did not take new research by some Aussie company or similar to work it out (though if my company buys the AIMS "add on" provided by this company that will hopefully be a good thing but it is a "but"!)
CAP 371 was written some time ago and set out limits which we all know became targets for the company’s rosterers. This was before the advent of the LCCs and the increases in general of traffic. If anything, we should be reducing the limits in CAP 371 and not be allowing EASA to increase them.
PS Love the BALPA video.
According to my father, lots of research into the effects of fatigue was done by the late Hugh Ruffel-Smith who was an AME at Farnborough I believe. I do not have access to the Belgrano to check in the library but did find some info a while ago but correct me if I am wrong on the following:
One of the things he did was to follow what was then BEA and BOAC crews around on flights following their rosters and the operation itself. I believe he initially proposed a point system which took into account even things like the number of RT calls and of course the obvious stuff like the number of sectors, time of day/night etc. I am assuming that CAP 371 is in a large part based on his research and it would be interesting to know if anyone knows if this assumption is correct?
He also did work with NASA monitoring performance of crews in simulators after they had been deliberately fatigued and measured the impairment in their performance.
Most of us now know that 24 hours without sleep is the same as a couple of pints in terms of our ability to judge and operate machinery, cars and dare I say it, an aircraft.
It is well documented what can lead to cumulative fatigue, where even if you have not actually been awake for 24 hours the effect is the same or worse. I can remember one summer flying charter with loads of roster changes, where I was standing in my kitchen early evening and people were talking to me and I realized I had not got a clue what was going. A few years later the company introduced blocked rosters which meant virtually no changes to one's published roster. I was shocked to find when I filled out my logbook one month, that I had done 98 hours in a month yet I did not feel tired. Having a stable roster allowed me to at least plan my life and my rest.
My current company supposedly operates to CAP371. We supposedly have an FRMS system in place. However, we do not have blocked rosters and roster changes are frequent. It says in CAP 371 that "rest periods between 18 and 36 hours should be avoided", yet this is the most common rest period. I believe partly as s result of this a lot of my colleagues are exhausted.
It seems the gist of the EASA proposals are if a company has rosters that are "green lighted" by the companies own FRMS that has been "green lighted" by EASA, then no further intervention is required by legislation or rules by EASA. If we did not have legislation, we would still have kids down coal mines and allowing a company to operate rosters in accordance with its own FRMS is to my mind a bit like putting the wolf in charge of the sheep! Honorable MOP please note!
We already knew what would lead to fatigue 40 odd years ago and it did not take new research by some Aussie company or similar to work it out (though if my company buys the AIMS "add on" provided by this company that will hopefully be a good thing but it is a "but"!)
CAP 371 was written some time ago and set out limits which we all know became targets for the company’s rosterers. This was before the advent of the LCCs and the increases in general of traffic. If anything, we should be reducing the limits in CAP 371 and not be allowing EASA to increase them.
PS Love the BALPA video.
Join Date: Jul 2001
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slopwith
18-30hr rest - indeed hence the view that EASA FTL might improve things as no such limits so airlines dont have to switch away from early / lates / nights to avoid the "rules". Science also supports staying in the early/late/night patterns.
Any "green light" FRMS would include heavy crew involvement / input and regulatory guideance and supervision.
18-30hr rest - indeed hence the view that EASA FTL might improve things as no such limits so airlines dont have to switch away from early / lates / nights to avoid the "rules". Science also supports staying in the early/late/night patterns.
Any "green light" FRMS would include heavy crew involvement / input and regulatory guideance and supervision.
Heavy Crew Involvement
We may get the luxury or more to the point the open mindedness and forward thinking of a company to heavily involve the crew in Europe but I think it highly unlikely that companies in other regions who currently run CAP 371 and who seem to manage by fear, would even tolerate "heavy crew involvement"! I heard a rumour that one CEO was quoted as saying "I don't tell you how to fly an airplane, don't tell me how to run an airline"! Clearly if true, heavy involvement will be possible there! 
Yeah right! Like I said, I think we are handing the sheep costume to the wolf.
In terms of open mindedness and forward thinking, I think it took a lot at what was Britannia when they introduced day off payments and blocked rosters; how can giving pilots more money save us money and how can giving them stable blocked rosters help towards flexibility when there is disruption?
To which the answer was that instead of taking pilot B off a flight to cover Pilot A who was sick or out of FDP and then using pilot C to cover Pilot B etc etc, call Pilot Z, offer him a day off payment to do Pilot A's flight. Job done. Rest of the program stayed stable. I seem to remember a figure along the lines of in the first year it cost them several hundred thousand pounds in day off payments but they saved about four million in program stability. Every roster change had a about 130 associated roster changes which all ended with forward thinking.
Whilst I have digressed somewhat, it will take a forward thinking company to operate without imposed FTLs who can see that running crews into the ground does not necessarily save money. Sickness spreads more easily as as had been mentioned, peoples immune systems go down etc. And of course the occasional hole in the ground is bad for business.
Mind you, on the plus side, if a company is running its own FTL based on its own FRMS as opposed to legislative FTLs, and there is a fatigue related hole in the ground it would maybe make a company more nervous about being in charge and responsible for FTLs and prefer the Legislative ones so they can blame the government!
In short, is/are the proposals by EASA a good thing?
OK it wasn't short! Just too knackered to get out of bed and do something useful like play a round! Purr purr!
Yeah right! Like I said, I think we are handing the sheep costume to the wolf.In terms of open mindedness and forward thinking, I think it took a lot at what was Britannia when they introduced day off payments and blocked rosters; how can giving pilots more money save us money and how can giving them stable blocked rosters help towards flexibility when there is disruption?
To which the answer was that instead of taking pilot B off a flight to cover Pilot A who was sick or out of FDP and then using pilot C to cover Pilot B etc etc, call Pilot Z, offer him a day off payment to do Pilot A's flight. Job done. Rest of the program stayed stable. I seem to remember a figure along the lines of in the first year it cost them several hundred thousand pounds in day off payments but they saved about four million in program stability. Every roster change had a about 130 associated roster changes which all ended with forward thinking.
Whilst I have digressed somewhat, it will take a forward thinking company to operate without imposed FTLs who can see that running crews into the ground does not necessarily save money. Sickness spreads more easily as as had been mentioned, peoples immune systems go down etc. And of course the occasional hole in the ground is bad for business.
Mind you, on the plus side, if a company is running its own FTL based on its own FRMS as opposed to legislative FTLs, and there is a fatigue related hole in the ground it would maybe make a company more nervous about being in charge and responsible for FTLs and prefer the Legislative ones so they can blame the government!
In short, is/are the proposals by EASA a good thing?
OK it wasn't short! Just too knackered to get out of bed and do something useful like play a round! Purr purr!
Join Date: Oct 2003
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I was extremely tired most of the time I spent in the UK with a LCC and I know it will cost lives in the future but they need money from one of the few sources of revenue left.Give the LCC anything they want,tax the punters to death,take away existing pilots licences and make them do the tests again, it goes on.The UK is just a third world country with desperate government and what appears a good system in the CAA but the illusion is fading.Why not print some more money that will work?
