Skunkie, I don't think anyone here was blaming the pilots as such. I certainly wasn't. If you saw my discussion of the effects of diphenhydramine as blaming the pilots for having ingested these substances, that was not the case. My view is that had they needed to ingest substances to assist them with sleep due to the effects of jet-lag and needing to sleep, as it was quoted to be the likely purpose of taking them in the AAIB report, it was more the problem at the organisational level than the problem that the pilots "caused" as such. By saying “organisational level”, I am talking about the regulations that permit them to work these hours, and rostering practice. I am not totally alien to the concept of sleep deprivation, fatigue inducing rosters etc and I do see that there are major problems in the current FTL.
After all, it was stated in the AAIB report that there was no warning of possible impairment on the packet - it just said to avoid mixing with alcohol. Pilots are not medical professionals and they cannot be expected to know everything about every medicine they might take (although one would hope that they would exercise common sense when taking something). If you read the report, it made safety recommendations about giving proper warnings on medicine packets etc. I got the impression that the AAIB report did deal with failure of the systems (I don't mean aircraft system here, but the whole organisational system including the lack of warning from FDA regarding the effects of the medicine, and the strange point made about "polished frost" by FAA etc).
I think it would be quite important to focus on WHY some pilots are needing to turn to pharmaceutical aid to sleeping. I would hazard a guess that in many cases, it is as a result of sleep disturbance and fatigue caused by rostering and/or circadian dysrhythmia. Often, one would find that being fatigued does not necessarily mean that one could easily get to sleep. Fatigue seems to be cited more and more as a contributory factor to accidents nowadays, and I think it is about time the authorities re-examined why fatigue-inducing patterns are still permitted despite all the evidence presented by aviation medics and psychologists that many rostering practices permissible under various FTL systems are fatigue-inducing.
Having said that, education on the effects of medicines (prescription and non-prescription) on flying, would be very beneficial. You suggested that they should be advised by their physicians. That’s all fine, but it is quite hard to see a physician about every non-prescription medicine someone would take (for instance, in the UK it can take days before one can see a GP, and it would cost some money to see one in Australia). A better plan would be for the aviation authorities to issue clearer guidelines on certain medicines that have a potential to affect alertness or other aspects of a person pertinent to flight safety. I feel this would be particularly important for non-prescription medicines as it would be harder to be guided by a physician than regarding prescription medicine.
As for the issue of two captains flying together, I guess avoiding rostering them together as much as possible, and education and awareness would be the key. At least being made aware of the potential problems would mean that they would be more alert to them and can take preventative actions. It is at times hard for companies to avoid rostering two captains together and therefore the pilots should receive at least some sort of training.
Skunkie, out of curiosity, what do you feel about this company’s practice of permitting non-commander handling pilot to fly from the left hand seat, from the CRM and human factors point of view?
It is very unfortunate that the media chose to sensationalise the findings by reporting it the way it did, but I guess that’s what they do - make things sound newsworthy.
Cheers,
NN