The report, completed in September last year, found that pilots landing their planes at the end of international long-haul flights had just 5.6 hours of sleep on average in the previous 24-hour period.
Pilots landing their aircraft after domestic short-haul flights had just 6.4 hours of sleep over the previous 24 hours on average.
At the risk of hijacking the thread, that's pretty similar sleep amounts to what ATC get, and we have no protection of maximum hours either. I admit that the pilot has to be more on the ball when landing the plane than ATC, but each pilot only has to do it once at the end of the trip - ATC has to separate each plane from every other plane, often more than once during the night shift - law of averages says eventually fatigue is going to bite - and bite HARD.
When are the respective parties (pilot & ATC) actually going to get the protection and genuine fatigue management they require to do thier jobs safely?
Hello? CASA are you there?