Crew fatigue

[Raas767]

Any of you guys that fly long haul have what we call tag legs? In other words you fly 8.5 hours with an augmented crew all night. Land at an intermediate destination and sit for 1.5 hours then fly on to your destination.

We have such a trip on our schedule for next month. Although technically legal it is obviously patently unsafe in my opinion.

Just wanted to get some input and see if it is common with other airlines.

Fly Safe!

[SWA73Driver]

I've gotten it after just a four or five hour flight. I've found that the fatigue is a little better if I can just stand up and get the blood flowing to my legs for just a few minutes every couple of hours. I don't usually do 8+ hour flights nonstop....so can't help you there!!! Hope that helps!

[sleeper]

Yes we do. With one additional pilot. Bunk rest is divided on the long stretch.

[M.Mouse]

Fatigue and tiredness are two different things.

[jshg]

In my (UK charter) company we do long haul flights designated either as 'heavy' (3 pilots, resting on F/D), or 'augmented' (3 pilots, minimum 3 hrs in an allegedly comfortable seat in the cabin). Invariably it's one sector - I suppose it could theoretically be two - but the 90 min on the ground would be irrelevant under UK rules, as only 3 hrs will do.
Please withdraw all your posts or else the UK CAA will think this is a good idea ......

[Fundi-Ya-Ndege]

Unfortunately in the UK we are allowed to do more than 9 Hour sectors two crew under the Florida 2 variation.
Shows what a gutless and toothless organisation like the CAA will agree to when the airlines ask....
Hope they don't see this either as this is just the sort of cr@p they like to pull!

[Big Tudor]

Raas767 What is it about the duty that you feel is 'patently unsafe'? Surely if is within the limits imposed on your scheduling document then the unsafe factors have been taken into account? Not being provocotive just trying to get an understanding of what you feel about it.

jshg The rest can be added together from the 2 sectors to give a cumulative total of 3 hours. It doesn't have to be 3 consecutive hours rest. :eek:

[Caudillo]

Fatigue and tiredness are two different things

That's as may be. Neither are desirable states for operating flight crew.

[Raas767]

On our 767's the crew rest seat is in the cabin. About the only way you can sleep is if you have the second break when there is no service. First guy on break can't sleep because of dinner service going on around him and the third guy gets woken up by breakfast. If the airplane had bunks where you could really rest it would be one thing but in this case you are flying around with 3 REALLY tired pilots on the tag leg. Added to the equation is that very many pilots don't live at base and have to commute in. Some have kids and can't sleep before the trip etc. All this makes it patently unsafe in my opinion.
I have been doing all night flying for a really long time and when I land I usually feel like a bucket of smashed a&%$holes. I can't imagine strapping in again and flying for another 2 hours.
As usual, however, the mighty buck wins over safety and common sense every time!

[merlinxx]

This is a conundrum which has caused many discussions/investigations/studies here in the UK.

The crew scheduling folks have a guide book to work from, be they CAP371 or a local/company agreement. Which ever applies the crewing/rostering staff have that guide book, as well as their people handling/appreciating skills.

Scheduling to the limits should never be condoned, I add to that the requirement for a crew member to be adequately rested before a duty period.

I am a firm advocate of strict FTLs, always have been since the first draft of what became CAP371.

But, and a big BUT is that we all have to play to the rules, in other words schedule your day around your duty, you ain't paying the bills, your employer is!

[GlueBall]

Needless to say, the "commuting" part, and the part about "having kids" aren't factored into your scheduled "duty period."

You would be well to do to position into your assigned base the day before and ensure a day's rest on your own time. But you are probably too cheap to want to pay for a hotel, so you dead head live into your flight.

Sounds more like a personal problem. :{

[Raas767]

Tell that to the people in the back....
There is no law against commuting. Flying the back side of the clock is intrinsic in this business but when you land after an 8 hour flight you should go to the hotel. Not plan another leg. I didn't start this post to argue. I just wanted to get a sense as to how common this is in the industry as a whole and what your opinions are.

[cwatters]

Perhaps crew scheduling should ocasionally be required to make the trip and see for themselves. They could take a laptop with them so they could work on the flight :-)

[DrPat]

cwatters, i'm sure they would if they got paid the same wage as the drivers :} I've always thought that every crew member should spend a few shifts in crew scheduling/Ops as well

Have to agree with merlinxx on this one :)

[merlinxx]

This was always an intrinsic part of any operation I had influence over, a 12 month jump seat ride with a full log was required. Under FAA rules a Dispatcher must fly the routes he controls, but in the UK there is no requirement, but I still did it and not just on our own acft. I still consider CAP371 a very well thought out document, the responsibility is shared between those that schedule and those that accept the duty.

Having jump seated between YSSY & EGLL (no bloody beer) it's shagging awful, there was a crew change in SIN, but it can be done with a heavy crew, sod that.

I've seen the effects of fatigue after extended duty, folks too bloody tired/fatigued to even get into the motor and drive home, it is concerning and yes I did something about it, insist they have a 60 min nap in the crew quiet room, I'll have the staff call home to say what's going on. It bloody well worked, that's why we had such great crews.

[oceanpotion]

I've always thought that every crew member should spend a few shifts in crew scheduling/Ops as well

DrPat - Why??? What would that actually accomplish? Are you serious or are you on something? Crewing sits there and don't have to directly answer to anyone regarding the ultimate safety of the fare paying passengers. The rules are made to keep you legal; not alive. Legal does not necessarily means safe, especially in this industry. Let's be real here and stop behaving like little girls playing tit for tat games. Maybe if some of us grew up and dropped the egos this entire industry would not be so full of idiots who play with peoples' lives. I can go on forever but it would'nt accomplish anything -will it?

[DrPat]

oceanpotion - It may achieve a better understanding of what Crewing actually do as some closed-minded individuals think we sit all day playing with peoples' rosters for fun! I have been asked many times by flight deck if they can come and sit in Ops/Crewing for a few hours to experience it and it's been an excellent experience for both crew and crewing. Oh and we answer to the CAA (or relevant regulatory body) about safety, not passengers :)

Anyway, i've drifted away from the topic, apologies!

[ray cosmic]

DrPat, with all due respect, I think it is totally irrelevant if you encounter stress during your 9-5 job if what "we" are talking about is trying to keep your eyes open during an approach which might kill you or get you fired if you're lucky.
More often than not, people "on the ground" tend to forget how demanding the job as an airline pilot can be, so in no way you are entitled to even try to compare both functions. Amongst others, this kind of respect has vanished the last years in the continuous mockery against crew. Sad, but true. We are not schedulers, mechanics, loadmasters or what have you. We are our own profession incomparable with yours.
The regulations you are working with each and everyday are a limit, not a target. Pushing people to the limit over and over again might have once the wrong outcome.
On the other hand, what often fails in most scheduling departments is some common sense. So many things could be improved without additional cost to the company, but no, everything needs to be written down in law or CWA to push some reason into people. Sorry drPat and Merlinxx, but I definitely think you are not correct on this one,

[Dan Winterland]

Raas 767 - sounds like a freight operation. We had a trip like that on our network when I was flying boxes. Except that the short trip was the frst leg - and we weren't augmented. It was very tiring. :(

And the Florida 2. Don't even start me on that :* It was designed for occasional use by charter operators. But we were using it for regular use on a schedule - and we also had to report to Heathrow and then travel to Gatwick by road prior to the trip. It was so fatiguing - it was downright dangerous. Despite the ASRs relating to crews falling asleep, the CAA still allowed it.

I sorted out my fatigue problems by changing to a short haul job. Much better. :D

[Metal Fatigued]

I recently attended a seminar conducted by two professional Doctors in the field of Human Factors and Fatigue in aviation, hosted by the US ATSB. They talked about a particular ATSB investigation of an accident that occurred at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba on 18 August 1993 involving a MD8-61 aircraft.
ASN Aircraft accident McDonnell Douglas DC-8-61 N814CK Guantánamo NAS (NBW) (http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19930818-0)

At this seminar was the Captain of that flight. He spoke of the accident and how after the many years of investigation by the ATSB, how fatigue played a major role in this accident. It was very emotional for this gentleman, after all these years to talk about that day. All 3 crew members walked away from the accident, which was a miracle in itself. I urge you to take the time to read this accident report and research the accident. Fatigue is a real issue for pilots, especially in cargo operations.

[DrPat]

ray - I appreciate our jobs are completely incomparable. I have many good friends who are flight crew and not in a million years could I put up with the responsibility, workload and schedules they do, but that's why they get paid the big bucks :ok:

Agree that fatigue is a serious issue and also agree that the rules are there as a limit, not a target but sadly the big bosses want to see everyone working as hard as they can for their money, rarely caring about any possible consequences :=

[Mr Angry from Purley]

I think you UK chaps that work with CAP371 are missing the point. The poster said he flys overnight for 8hrs 30 mins, lands, then after a 90 min turn flys off again (he does not mention how long for). For one the Florida 2 only allows a single sector back to the UK (i think). Secondly the UK rules on ETOPS 2 Man crew are well known to be flawed, factorisation for one. There's no medical evidence to support if a 3 man crew will be less tired than a 2 man crew. the only thing that happens is one Nigel gets pi$$ed off as he does not get a landing.
The UK CAA are aware the whole subject needs looking at, and this is one area where the "experts" are looking as EU Sub part Q gave it a wide birth.

In a previous life, crews flew SFB MAN and got off. Alongside came a Spanair aircraft and the crew flew SFB-MAN-PMI.

CA371 gives plenty of protection.

[Stan Woolley]

Dear Mr Angry

I think that if you have not operated as a pilot under CAP 371 your opinion of it is worth very little.

[ray cosmic]

DrPat, point taken. Regretfully it is only fingerpointing at this stage. Hopefully Fatigue Risk Management will really take off one day, and we can fly according to what is sensible. Meaning sometimes longer duties, sometimes shorter duties.. Everybody happy. :)

[llnflder]

you guys have not been to Canada.14 hours max add 1 hour with an augment crew member.no seat in the back as they are all sold.and oh yah you can go unforseen to 17 hours plus 1 hour for the augment crew member.any time of day or nite.:O;)good old TC.but you can use the fatigue card.

[411A]

It helps to be in a small complany where the boss thinks highly of the FD crew.

Example.
Depart JED at 2am local.
No overflight clearance available from KRT, so return.
Refuel/refile via CAI/TIP FIR's, and depart.
Arrive at destination, with a weather problem.
Divert.
Wait for weather improvement at original destination, then dispatch toward same.
Call the company, and say...we are tired, please arrange HOTAC.
Company says, no problem, HOTAC informed, dispatch when you are rested, your decision as to length of stay.

An unusual occurance?
Not with this company.
The CEO is a former pilot and understands fatigue.

[Raas767]

Just to follow up. I don't know if it was because of line pilot and union pressure (doubtful) or if they just made a mistake constructing the trip. In any case the tag leg after the all night flight has been removed and crews layover. Now it flies MIA-SSA, layover 24 hours. Next day SSA-REC-MIA. A much saner pairing since it is augmented day time flying.
I don't know what prompted it but we all welcome the change. I guess it doesn't hurt to raise hell every now and again.

[aviationdoc]

Does anyone remember the accident at Halifax 2 years or so ago-involving MK Airlines-the duty time was over 20 hours and fatigue played a major factor.
Unfortunately all 7 crew members died.

[Semu]

We probably have one of the longer legal days out there, 18 hours on duty with 12 hours aloft. Course, the whale has good bunks. Occasionally, we are asked to perform a ferry flight after all of that time (in the US, ferry flights are not subject to duty limits). While I can expound for pages on this, what makes this work, moderately well, is that the company has an iron clad fatigue policy. The second anyone says the word fatigue, we walk off of the airplane, and the day is done. Personally, that happens to me about once a year. That's just my airline though, but if you are too tired to fly, you are too tired to fly.

[squeaker]

Just spoken to one of our crewing people about this, and she told me she'd been on a course to find out all about it.
However, the course was scheduled at 10am, after she finshed a 12 hour nightshift at 7am.

You couldn't make it up...

[Basil]

1600hrs "So what do you think of all this fatigue stuff?" "Hello! HELLO!"

Now take some physio & psycho tests and then repeat them in a couple of days when well rested - compare results.

Excellent planning! :ok:

In fact, along the same lines as going in the sim after a few beers - was interesting. :O

[wheelbarrow]

It's the only way to go into the sim!

[cactusbusdrvr]

Metal Fatigue - I suspect the seminar you attended was run by Dr Mark Rosekind. I attended one of his seminars when I was a member of the ALPA safety committee at my airline. We ran an extensive night operation out of our LAS hub and we had issues with management regarding those types of flights - tag legs after having flown all night.

In part because of the impressive evidence on fatigue that Dr Rosekind presented we established a rule that you could not start another leg after having flown past 4 am home base time (4 am considered your time of circadian low). We called this the "no sunrise service rule".

What that means for us is that after having flown a leg from HNL to PHX (departing 2230 HNL, arriving 0730 PHX) I cannot be tagged to fly PHX to SAN. The only exception to this would be if I diverted enroute to LAX (it happened) and then continued on to PHX. You do have the option to call in fatigued at the diversion station if you feel that you are unsafe to continue.

I had a good friend come close to having a CFIT incident due to fatigue. You can only delay sleep debt, you cannot eliminate it without proper rest on either side of report time for duty.

[PJ2]

llnfldr;

you guys have not been to Canada.14 hours max add 1 hour with an augment crew member.no seat in the back as they are all sold.and oh yah you can go unforseen to 17 hours plus 1 hour for the augment crew member.any time of day or nite.http://static.pprune.org/images/smilies/embarass.gifhttp://static.pprune.org/images/smilies/wink2.gifgood old TC.but you can use the fatigue card.
It's even worse than that for Canada's airline crews. Max duty day for two is 14hrs with a 3hr extension for "unforseen circumstances" as you say, (which is bad enough for domestic crews and schedules), but for overseas with all the time changes/circadian issues and duty days it's even worse. The CARS (Canadian Air Regulations) (http://www.tc.gc.ca/CivilAviation/Regserv/Affairs/cars/Part7/Standards/720.htm#720_16) only recognize and provide duty period relief for one augment pilot. Most pilot associations have had to "spend" negotiating dollars to first, properly crew long haul overseas operations, second, provide SAE-standard crew rest facilities for such operations, and third, make duty periods safer by restricting duty days contractually for a four-pilot operation because Canada does not restrict them appropriately through the CARS. In point of fact, Canada does not even recognize the existence of a fourth crew member and so does not require such for long haul airline operations.

Without such legal restrictions, in Canada, a crew with one augment pilot and a "legal" (SAE-standard) bunk can legally be on duty for 20hrs, with the standard 3-hr extension available to the crew for "unforseen circumstances", making a total possible legal duty period for Canadian crews of 23 hours, or just one hour less than the legal duty period for the Ghana African crew flying the accident MK 747 at Halifax.

From the accident report (http://www.wiloo.be/mk_airlines_final_report_crash_halifax.htm):
A ramp inspection of an MK Airlines Limited DC-8 in the United States following the accident in Halifax identified several deficiencies, and on 29 October 2004, the FAA informed the company that its Operations Specification was cancelled; no specific reason was stated.In December 2004, the FAA conducted a reassessment of the GCAA and, on 30 April 2005, it announced publicly that Ghana had failed to comply with ICAO [International Civil Aviation Organization] standards. As a result, Ghana's safety rating was lowered to Category 2.

Bear in mind that even the Ghanan regulations specified a four-pilot crew, (two captains, two first officers), with two engineers. The actual crew scheduled by MK were three pilots, which is only illegal in Canada by one hour thirty minutes for this crew's duty day.

One might conclude from this that Ghana's air regulations, as written anyway, are more restrictive than Canada's. I realize that the obvious wider practises are at odds with the Ghanan regulations but that is why the above cited actions were taken by the FAA.

If Canada is serious about SMS, the regulator can begin with appropriate recognition of the worldwide substantial research and literature into crew fatigue and the risk of accidents as well as studying those accidents where fatigue is already indicated as a causal factor, and stop leaving it up to professional pilot associations to individually negotiate safe duty day limitations.

[shortfinals]

Flight time limitations, as per CAP 371 or any other country's version, are not going to be good enough on their own soon - in Europe at least. Check out the preparation for a mandatory system based on individual carrier fatigue risk monitoring systems:

Airlines to be required to run fatigue management systems (http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2008/10/08/316834/airlines-to-be-required-to-run-fatigue-management-systems.html)

The Luxembourg pilot union ALPL recently held an excellent two-day symposium on the subject, and it will also be one of the subjects at this:

2008 Flight International Crew Management Conference (http://www.flightglobalevents.com/p/1031)

Things are moving on. It looks as if EZY really started something here.

[Caudillo]

Shortfinals, thank you for the link to the article. A couple of things stood out for me on reading over it.

Dr Paul Jackson, a fatigue scientist from Australia-based Clockwork Research, said that FRMS is not just an addition to an FTL regime, but ideally it should replace it, because a single set of national FTLs can never be appropriate for all types of operation.[QUOTE]

That sounds sensible. Note his use of the word appropriate. I would suggest, although I stress that I don't know, that he is implying that in cases the FTLs may not be restrictive enough, whilst in other cases it's the contrary.

[QUOTE]EasyJet's Capt Simon Stewart, who is on the ICAO's FRMS subcommittee and oversees the system at his airline, says FRMS is a system that suits EasyJet because "we are looking for optimisation and efficiency wherever we can find it".[/

Does this suggest that this company drives forward the FRMS regime not because of the any elightened or ostensible safety benefits it will provide but rather because it will allow a freer hand in utilizing crews?

The article explains that FRMS will sit alongside an FTL regulation, in order to better reflect the particulars of the operation of a given airline. This arrangement suggests to me at least, that FRMS will allow the user to modify the FTLs to suit them.

Did anyone use self-certificated mortgages to reduce the amount of money they could borrow from a bank?

Thought not.

[shortfinals]

Caudillo

Why do you think EASA is looking at FRMS as a reinforcement for FTLs, then?

Here's another link with a few of the considerations that are at stake. Incidentally, it doesn't sound like the easy option, it sounds like a recognition that FTLs are not enough.

How not to lose sleep (http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2008/10/09/317272/how-not-to-lose-sleep.html)


Time will tell.

[Moonraker One]

This is all smoke screen and mirrors.

A devise to use vodoo science to make a case for crews to work longer and more often.

It boils down to the individual reporting themselves to the system and the system always blames the individual not the vodoo science that justifies the system.

Humans are not designed to strap themselves to aircraft for hour after hour sector upon sector.

Duty hours should be no longer than 9 hours - that would be a good start.

Vodoo science = a system used to present fiction as fact.