Pilots sleeping on the job?

[Landmark]

Article in the Sunday Mail today suggesting that a significant number of pilots are falling asleep on the flightdeck. Is this being hammed up by the Mail (as if!!??) or is there something in it?

[R8TED THRUST]

What is wrong with a quick Cat nap!

hahaha

cheers

[hapzim]

A proper controlled napping policy gets you through those long fatigued inducing flights.

With no rest areas or proper breaks apart from a quick toilet visit, roster changes from earlies to lates etc with minimum rest, it can only be advantageous to have at least one pilot awake, the other catnapping in their seat.
Both are then a lot fresher for the arrival, or the warning sounds of system failures.

:zzz: :zzz:

[AIRWAY]

I believe some airlines encourage quick naps.

If im not mistaken ( and i cant remember where i read it, sorry ) a 30m nap = 2 hours energy boost.

:zzz:

[Max Pointers]

Fetch back the three man flight deck with the F/E keeping a cattle prod handy

[A good headin]

0130z, a rainy night in Southern Iraq, NVG goggles go U/S. 50ft agl, 480kts, AAA all around, how I dreamed of sleep. Happy Days :hmm:

[qwertyuiop]

I have frequently slept on flights. Most pilots I know do. Forget the alcohol stories in the press, the major problem is fatigue. I hope the journo's get hold of this thread and do an in depth story. I am tired of being knackerd on flights!!!

[Human Factor]

There was something written that x hours awake = so much over the drink-DRIVE limit (as opposed to the drink-fly limit of 20mg/100ml).

Sadly, I can't remember what x or how much over the limit are. Too tired.... :zzz:

If anyone can find out, please post it below.......

[Motorola]

After 18 hours awake you are equivalent to 0.05 blood alcohol level.

Adelaide University, Australia.

[Old King Coal]

There's been more than a few occasions when I've been at the controls having been continuously awake for 24 hours ( or more ) – and yes, how one feels is indeed somewhat akin to being intoxicated ( i.e. trouble thinking clearly / quickly, lethargy, etc ).

Of course when your brain insists that some shut-eye must be had you’ve really got no choice but to have a nap ( headset off, move your seat rearwards and recline…. sound familiar to a good many of us ?! ) and wherein you just hope that the guy in the adjacent seat is able to hold the fort whilst you get some kip.

What the Flight Times Limitations (FTL) scheme does not take account of is that we live in the real world, people can’t just go to sleep at the drop of hat, the kids can keep you awake, your wife’s on the warpath, etc. to say nothing of how you’ve been rostered.
E.g. I’ve had rosters that have me finishing at close to midnight on a Monday. Then on Tuesday we’d do a long night flight - finishing in some foreign port on Wednesday morning. That is then followed by a fractured sleep and a down-route hotel. Which is then followed by the return flight on Wednesday night ( arriving back in the UK on Thursday morning ) – I’d defy anybody not to be tired in the early hours of that Thursday.
And it’s all ‘legal’, and one can’t shout the ‘F’ word ( i.e. Fatigue ) coz the FTL’s say that you shouldn’t be….. but you are !

And the biggest joke of the lot is that if you have a road traffic accident as you’re leaving the crew car park, on that Thursday morning, you stand to get banged-up for operating your motor vehicle whilst unfit ( and yet, just a short time previously, you were landing tons of metal, onto a narrow strip of concrete, at close on 160 mph, in god only knows what weather ! ). The irony of it should not be lost on us. :rolleyes:

One would like to think that the newspaper(s) could do an honest article about this, but somehow I doubt it - which is a shame, as it's a far more prevalent issue than is the boozing, and is probably just ( or even more so ) as dangerous.

[Wingswinger]

I have slept on the flight deck. Sometimes intentionally, sometimes unintentionally. There is something in it, believe me. Fatigue is a serious problem and much more so than minute traces of alcohol in blood-streams.

[Kestrel_909]

I'm no pilot but after spending time on the road with my father as a trucker, some 18hour days, min rest that at it again..... just 40mins sleep can work wonders.

Ok it isn't a miracle and your fresh to go for another 9 hours but it definitely has you in a better state of mind than before.

[Few Cloudy]

In the eighties, a Swissair captain, after organising the cockpit accordingly, took a sleep on a north Atlantic flight. The cabin chief saw him and happened to mention it a week or so later during a party to the chief pilot.

Tha captain was suspended and flew I think for a while as first officer before reinstatement. Sleeping on a flight was unheard of.

Later the policy changed and common sense took over. Instead of dancing instruments before the eyes and heads leaning onto the side windows, an organised nap policy was introduced. This allowed for short recovery naps with the other pilot being alerted, the "egg-timer" being set and a few other precautions.

With the intoduction of enlarged or heavy crew on long range flights this problem decreased but on so called short range flights is still a problem - Spain gets very big at night...

I am not sure what Swissair's successor Swiss has for a policy but a short nap really revises you and it makes more sense to have one sleeping pilot than a whole crew dozing off.

[1DC]

Why not?
Where is the sense in two people getting tired together on a long haul flight when they could be taking it in turn to have a nap.

[Milt]

The Fighter Pilot gets it rough sometimes when the chips are down. !!

Extract from memoirs. - Korean War Ops

Our relaxation over protecting our rear changed dramatically later when we were occasionally attacked by the USAF F80 Shooting Stars. Initially apart from one other USAF Mustang Squadron we were the only prop driven fighters in the action and somehow the USAF jet pilots thought anything with a prop was fair game.

Fortunately we always picked up the F80 attacks on our formations and called breaks in time to cause them to miss with their firing passes. Some of the radio calls made to these F80s are unrepeatable. They were too fast for us to do any effective reverse break on to their tails and we just had to be continually alert. This and the summer heat added to extreme physical demands.

On one occasion my section of 4 were returning to base in battle formation from Korea to Iwakuni, Japan, after having flown 3 exhausting missions. Weary and short on food intake during the day we were droning along at about 10,000 ft over the sea. I tried closing one eye for a while alternating from one eye to the other. Soon both eyes stayed closed and I was immediately asleep. Trimmed a little nose down, the Mustang dropped down out of the wide formation and the speed built up. The change in noise awakened me with a start and I was aghast to see the rest of my flight about 2,000 ft above. I sneaked back into the formation before anyone else noticed my little excursion.

There were often times when we could have benefited from some form of medication to keep us alert for longer periods. I guess one ended up being very low on one's supply of adrenalin already drawn upon extensively by the demands at the peaks of an operational mission. Often it was necessary to call up any remaining reserves to enable a reasonable approach and landing particularly at night. There was the ocassional landing accident.

[jetjockey737]

'Cat naps' are very common. It is amazing the difference they make.

The other day I asked if the other minded if I shut my eyes for ten minutes. I left my headset on and just kicked back my seat, before this I was f****ed. Cabin crew binged us 15 mins later, I opened my eyes and felt great.

Should be encouraged I think..there is definately a difference between cat napping and sleeping though!!

[Hudson Bay]

Sleeping during a duty is common place. Crews are always tired due to poor rostering practices. IMHO sleeping on a flight deck is bang out of order because of the safety implications. However it is a dam site safer to have a cat nap than to struggle to stay awake.

It is high time that the CAA woke up and stopped the Airlines abusing an outdated FTL scheme. The CAA should be brought to book for not enforcing malpractice within the Airlines. They are more concerned that the Captain fills out the tech log correctly than they are about knakered pilots.

How about sending this thred to the CAA and the Daily Mirror? Lets expose the bad players and bring these abusers to the table and get the idiots to explain themselves. For me I just have my own FTL scheme and it works rather well!

[cwatters]

Check Landmarks profile = new member.

Which newspaper do you work for Landmark?

[hapzim]

If Landmark works in the media, compiles an accurate with correct facts article, (not jurno headlining spread- anyone can do that) that may bring public or political pressure on european goverments to review FTL's with scientific up to date data for todays aviation enviroment, that operators have to compliy with, not aim to met than so much the better.

If Landmark is not in the media can he or she pass this thread on to someone who is.
:hmm:

[poorwanderingwun]

In theory there should be no danger involved in one pilot being allowed a short nap in the cruise.....unfortunately that's theory only....
The chances are that f one pilot is suffering from sleep deprivation then it's quite likely that the other pilot could be similarly suffering and with one pilot asleep who will keep the other awake.....I've been tempted in the past to allow an FO to grab 40 winks but always resisted the temptation....better to try to stimulate some brain activity....

Hapzim has a point...what's needed is some media attention....much waffle about any pilot who's caught trying to slip aboard while suffering from a hangover but fatigue is mentioned regularly as a factor in air accidents/incidents while alcohol never....( at least in the airline world)

The effects of fatigue are every bit as lethal as alcohol yet no one cares overmuch.... strange world isn't it ?

[Sleeve Wing]

Been there, done that, just like a number of contributors to this thread.

It's true, a quick nap for 15-20 minutes, especially about half an hour before landing, is by far the best way to deal with fatigue.

Trouble is that, like a chum of mine, you tend to fall asleep again driving home - usually at O' sparrow fart on a foggy motorway.
He scraped the centre support of a motorway bridge after a long charter back into LTN.

Glad I arranged a kip on one of many particular occasions.

Rostered BFS-LCA-BFS, middle of 5 consec. days.
0800 (dark)start, 1.5 hours dep. delay, good trip out, long drag back to tech.stop AMS and pick up STBY crew. Had a kip round about Erlangen, AMS vis. 10Ks +.
Within 15 mins. of arrival (2115), it was down rapidly to Cat 3b (unforecast) with obvious 20min delay.

Oh, and BTW, you try and find your way around AMS when you can hardly see beyond the nosewheel.

Yes, glad we arranged ( separate) naps that evening.

How many times a week, for how many guys, does that happen ? Too many, these days.

Sleeve.

[nzmarty]

as an engineer/ppl, i sympathise with long haul pilots who are awake for 24 hour stretches. i have just come off 12hr shifts, 4 on 4 off, 2 x days 2 x nights, and for 2 out of 8 days, i was awake for 24-30 hours. our company had a sleep room, so that we could nap during breaks. it wasn't really quiet though, being attached to a 747 heavy maintennance hangar. it worked reasonably well, but often on the way home i would have to pull over for a sleep on my 80 minute commute. one day i pulled over for a nap,and woke up 4 hours later!

so yes, i am an advocate for power napping, but nothing is a subtitute for good quality sleep in your own bed.....

[HotDog]

poorwanderingwun, in another life, I have seen both left and right seat catching a nap simultanously which certainly kept me wide awake on long haul. Gave several position reports which were graciously acknowledged by the guys when they emerged from their mini sleeps.

[RoyHudd]

Yeh, I often think of offering the Captain 40 winks, too. After all, there's not a chance of stimulating any brain activity there!

Seriously, power naps suited Sir Winston Churchill, and he made a pretty good job of it. Sleep experts will advise that in case of acute fatigue, one or two naps, not reaching REM sleep are temporarily restorative.

The problem many of us on long-haul, charter, scheduled short-haul, night freight, air-taxi, corporate (i.e. all of us) is CHRONIC FATIGUE, which is a very different beast. Regrettably, most folk on here, myslf included, are not qualified to offer even an opinion. A good AME can advise.

[MungoP]

Winnie did indeed do an excellent job....the last I heard though was that he caught his 'power sleep' 30 feet underground not 30,000 feet overground....
It comes back to what 'Poor Wanderingwun' and 'RoyHudd' are proposing.... a realistic schedule......

What about getting management to observe a typical night freight/day passenger schedule for a couple of months before entering into negotiations over future work practises....if they can stay awake long enough at the negotiating table we might get quite a decent deal... :E

[Wiley]

I don't think I've ever actually got to sleep on the flight deck (at least intentionally), but putting the seat back and taking the weight off the neck for as little as ten minutes can have quite a positive effect.

Milt, (back on page 1, with the F86 'war-ie'), your surname wouldn't be the same as a well-known brand of Aussie jam, would it?

[Milt]

Wiley

OK so you cracked the code. But it was in an F51 -- F86s some time later and much later F111s. Drop me a PM.

Then a cousin with same name used to own Ye Old Bowral Airfield from which he flew his Baron Von Ritchoffen Triplane replica in mock combat with a Bristol Fighter. No way could you feel sleep deprived in those machines.

Sometime slung a hammock in Gooneys on a long haul to keep the yawns away. Kept us fresh for terminal activities.

[Arkroyal]

read in the same article that short haul pilots are only allowed to fly 3 sectors without a break.

I wonder if the rest of the piece benefitted from such excellent research?

[Jump Complete]

I am just about to start flying full time after having flown part time and also doing care work. Night duties with the care work (where one sits outside someones door 'specialing' (ie, making sure they don't hurt themselves etc) it gets tough to stay awake, especially at 4am. I would cat nap, trying to ensure I didn't go enough to not wake up if anything happened. Often though, driving home safely would be and feel as if I had been drinking. Problem is though, what do you do? If one has already been sitting in a chair half the night, one only wants to get home to bed and anything else isn't going to help much anyway. The only night flying I've done has been 'hours building' when I would fly somewhere late afternoon, have a coffee and something to eat and fly back at night, arriving back at around midnight. A totally different thing from opeating a commercial flight with changable rostas all through the night to land at 6am in bad weather, I think! Cat napping in turns seems to be the only sensible option. Im not going to comment on FTLs and rostas as it doesn't apply to flying I do.

[yeoman]

The Journos won't pick up on it because it doesn't lambast the profession.

The CAA won't pick up on it because they're coin operated.:E

[123bamboo]

hi all

Dhl Bahrain are expert in sleeping in the a/c .
sleeping bag ,coussion etc

cheers

[Sector 7G]

What bothers me is when you look accross at your colleague to find out that they're catchin some zzzz without having the courtesy to tell you first!

Also someone suggested to me that drinking a cup of coffee before the 25 min nap works wonders as the caffeine takes 30 mins to kick in. Haven't road tested the theory though!