The author may be a pilot with over 35 years of experience and he is undeniably a skillful writer, but the fact is that the recently scrapped FDTL was one of the most useless pieces of regulation to ever be promulgated.
Just as an example, one of its many features made it possible to continue in whichever direction you started out (E or W) with 20 hours rest between sectors for just about as long as you wanted to. Turning around and returning from whence you came, however, required a ground stop of up to 3-4 days. It took a rare brand of idiocy to create a regulation that actually promoted greater time zone dislocations, but the DGCA managed to do it.
Calling it a "a well-thought-out and well-formulated regulation" is an absolute joke. What it was was one of the most incredible attempts at feather-bedding to ever see the light of day.
India does desperately need a well structured FDTL for all sorts of reasons including the prevention of egregious abuses such as those cited. What it doesn't need, though, is a manipulative recitation of accidents by an author who surely knows better.
The Transportation Safety Board of Canada in investigating the Air France over-run found:
3.3 Other Findings
There is no indication that the captain's medical condition or fatigue played a role in this occurrence.
The NTSB investigating the Southwest over-run found:
2. Analysis
2.1 General
The pilots were properly certificated and qualified under Federal regulations.
No evidence indicated any medical or behavioral conditions that might have adversely affected their performance during the accident flight. There was no evidence of flight crew fatigue.
Hopefully the DGCA will get it right the next time around and provide a regulation that is both safe and rational.
ELAC