Thats kinda the whole point isn't it. You either think that fatigue and tiredness is a safety issue or you don't. Do you not think that there have been accidents and incidents in the past caused by fatigue? Maybe you are immune normal-nigel from making mistakes due to being tired. In my airline there have been several incidents recently caused by pretty simple errors. The Chief pilot wrote that we should all be a bit more professional but didn't at any point equate those simply errors to fatigue. Wierd as these were all classic examples as the type of errors that causes hull loses. Taking off without flap will kill people, so will not reacting to a GPWS warning, so will lining up without line up clearance. These are all the types of incidents made more likely by fatigue.
Very shortly the Euro FTL changes are going to be implemented, it isn't any good complaining about these unless our own house is order. At the moment I feel that some are:
a) poorly educated about the effects of fatigue
b) think it only applies to others and are not aware of the degradation of their airmanship as they get more and more tired.
c) Are aware but, even so, blatantly ignore the 90 min guidance on the grounds they can have a house with one more bedroom at the expense of reporting fully rested.
If you think it is melodramatic to equate tired pilots to airplane crashes then I suggest you go and have another read of your human factor books.
Are you guys saying that fatigue is not a factor in the error chain? If so then your arguments are fair enough.
I believe it can be one of the major causes to errors being made. Maybe as I've got older I've just become more susceptable to tiredness but I'm very aware how my own performance takes a dive when I am tired. generally I have to take a bit longer to do everything when at the end of a tiring day. Probably the most dangerous part is that it effects my mood and I become more introvert, less able to absorb the info that is given to me from outside sources. More likely to ignore a subtle bit of advice from my FO, missing radio calls, much more likely to just get a quick solution to a problem rather than the correct one, etc etc.
When training or checking it is even easier to see how pilots performances dip at the end of long days. We shouldn't be making these days any longer for ourselves.
Last edited by Justbelowcap; 20th May 2004 at 13:05.