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View Full Version : Fatigued crew call pan-pan into MUC


bfisk
18th Jun 2012, 09:30
Dead-Tired.eu News - Fatigued Pilots issue Distress Signal on Approach to Munich (http://us4.campaign-archive1.com/?u=757d52b1377bf9aa76147f2b1&id=1593c6d3bd&e=e71e71264f)

Will be interesting to read the report once it comes out.

My initial reaction is good going by the crew - they have detected a threat and proceeded to migitate it, where it would have been "easier" to keep quiet about it :D. Laudable indeed.

Denti
18th Jun 2012, 10:01
Apparently the PAN was declared to get protected areas for an auto land as otherwise that wouldn't have been granted. Standing SOP at that airline is to do an auto land when realizing that the crew is fatigued.

hetfield
18th Jun 2012, 10:36
There is a link on mentioned webpage..
Sicherheitsrisiken im Flugverkehr - WDR 2 Der Sender (http://www.wdr2.de/wirtschaft/piloten_arbeitsbedingungen100.html)

Erstaunlich nur, dass sich Air Berlin gar nicht zu dem Vorfall äußern mag. Eine Mail an die Pressestelle der Fluggesellschaft, in der – wie vorher telefonisch erbeten – einige sachliche Fragen zu dem Vorfall gestellt wurden, bügelte die Pressereferentin Melanie Schyja am 14. Juni 2012 kurz und knapp ab: "Vielen Dank für Ihre Anfrage. Für ein Statement stehen wir nicht zur Verfügung. Herzliche Grüße aus der Air Berlin-Pressestelle."Basically, "AB isn't "available" for any comment....":ugh:

Nick 1
18th Jun 2012, 10:44
"..to do an auto land when realizing that the crew is fatigued."
Very nice SOP , what about if there is a VOR Approach at fatigued destination?

Jet Jockey A4
18th Jun 2012, 10:50
Chances are that an aircraft with auto land capability would not be operating at a field where only a VOR approach is available.

oceancrosser
18th Jun 2012, 10:55
Chances are that an aircraft with auto land capability would not be operating at a field where only a VOR approach is available.

Me no gets this...

Johnny Tightlips
18th Jun 2012, 11:03
Chances are that an aircraft with auto land capability would not be operating at a field where only a VOR approach is available. I don't think you have taught this one through:D

J.O.
18th Jun 2012, 11:16
Statistically he may be correct, but it hasn't been thought through either. :cool:

BitMoreRightRudder
18th Jun 2012, 11:19
Is there actually a section of their ops manual that states an auto land is to be carried out if both pilots are fatigued? Only an airline industry manager, who never flies or has never even held a licence to do so, can come up with such a solution. After all, an auto land always works just fine and requires hardly any concentration or alertness.....:hmm:

In my previous airline pilots were worked beyond fatigue to the point driving home from the airport was sometimes an unacceptable risk. The management came up with a fatigue reporting system to replace calling in sick, but then of course hired only 200hr cadet co-pilots with £100k of debt on :mad: temporary contracts who were paid by the hour, but only if they showed up for work. Guess how many of them called in fatigued.

And another airline suggests to mitigate fatigue an auto land is accomplished as a "solution". A rostering system that prevents the on-set of fatigue in the first place perhaps?

despegue
18th Jun 2012, 11:26
The only thing that keeps me from falling asleep is disconnecting and landin the aircraft manually. The scanning and following of an autoland is more fatigue inducing in my experience, and requires a very clear mind to recognize failures and out of limit situations.

hetfield
18th Jun 2012, 11:43
I understand the typical flight duration for this trip is 2 1/4 hrs. If they were fatigued at destination wouldn't they have been sufficiently fatigued at departure to question their crewing of the flight at all?

No, not necessarily.

Don't know about number of sectors, delays, tech trouble......

sleeper
18th Jun 2012, 12:02
Chances are that an aircraft with auto land capability would not be operating at a field where only a VOR approach is available.

Funny, that. We operate a B773 into Quito after an 11 hr flight.
And there is no autoland possible in Quito as everybody that operates there knows.
Both rwy directions require a visual final approach!


I understand the typical flight duration for this trip is 2 1/4 hrs. If they were fatigued at destination wouldn't they have been sufficiently fatigued at departure to question their crewing of the flight at all?


What about multiple sector day's?
When starting your last sector you might be feeling ok. That can change after 2 hrs in flight.

pudoc
18th Jun 2012, 12:08
Very nice SOP , what about if there is a VOR Approach at fatigued destination?

Divert? Carry on and hope for the best and blame the airline later?

Good job by the crew, wonder what EASAs reaction was when they heard about this...

despegue
18th Jun 2012, 12:30
EASA do not care. They are the bitches of airline management.::mad:

SOPS
18th Jun 2012, 12:40
I have thought about it, and I have no idea what Jet Jockey means.:bored:

Jet Jockey A4
18th Jun 2012, 12:56
OK, OK, enough already!

Now that I think about it I don't even understand my own post! :O

Woke up from a short night sleep, was still in a daze when I read and wrote my post... Forgive me my fellow PPRuNers! :{

aterpster
18th Jun 2012, 12:58
Sleeper:

Funny, that. We operate a B773 into Quito after an 11 hr flight.
And there is no autoland possible in Quito as everybody that operates there knows.

Both rwy directions require a visual final approach!

Why do you consider an ILS with a DA of 652 and vis of 3.0 km, a visual approach? Won't that ILS (Rwy 35) support an autoland albeit with those minimums?

I presume your company isn't qualified to do the two RNP AR IAPs:

Runway 17 508 and 2.6 km.
Runway 35 542 and 3.0 km.

Jet Jockey A4
18th Jun 2012, 13:08
"Why do you consider an ILS with a DA of 652 and vis of 3.0 km, a visual approach? Won't that ILS (Rwy 35) support an autoland albeit with those minimums?

I presume your company isn't qualified to do the two RNP AR IAPs:

Runway 17 508 and 2.6 km.
Runway 35 542 and 3.0 km."
Yes I couldn't understand either the "only visual" approaches into Quito when apparently there are published approaches there.

I can only assume the high DA for the ILS on 35 is due because of obstacles.

Although you could possibly use the aircraft's auto land feature there I don't think it would be a wise procedure to do so. CAT II and III airports require special features to be certified to those minimums which include protected zones to avoid false signals to be received by the aircraft's onboard equipment especially during an auto land.

sleeper
18th Jun 2012, 13:21
Why do you consider an ILS with a DA of 652 and vis of 3.0 km, a visual approach? Won't that ILS (Rwy 35) support an autoland albeit with those minimums?

I presume your company isn't qualified to do the two RNP AR IAPs:

Runway 17 508 and 2.6 km.
Runway 35 542 and 3.0 km. [


The ils gp on rwy 35 hits the runway (no pun intended) far beyond the touchdown zone. If you would autoland the beast you will have problems stopping the aircraft before the end, especially in wet conditions. So autolands are not authorized in Quito.
In reality you would leave the gp at 2 miles and "dive" down to the touchdown zone. I would call that a visual final approach.

As for your other remark,
Yes we are qualified for rnp-ar approaches.
Again these are not approaches you can autoland from. Thus again visual finals with the same dive-down for rwy 35. Don't forget the final approach speed is about 180 groundspeed due to the altitude.

And guy's, I didn't say visual approach. I said visual Final approach.

PW127-B
18th Jun 2012, 17:10
Makes me wonder how many times this happens every day around the world:yuk:, difference being that this crew had the guts to actually ''report it''.
As far as an autoland it is a good solution altough a lot of concentration is requiered, and a lot of things can trigger a GA, not something you want being fatigued.
Anyway it would be good if more crews did report this kind of situations, don't you think?

Mr Angry from Purley
18th Jun 2012, 17:21
despegue
EASA do not care.
Can you just remind all what the significant changes are from your cutrrent sub part Q and the new EASA FTL proposals? :\

hetfield
18th Jun 2012, 17:25
Anyway it would be good if more crews did report this kind of situations, don't you think?Indeed.....!FedEx Flight 80 - YouTube

ATC Watcher
18th Jun 2012, 18:15
where it would have been "easier" to keep quiet about it

Reading between the lines of the article and where it comes from I doubt that was the intention at all. Quite the opposite I would say. But I might be wrong.
In any case a good example .

AfaIk EASA does not have any power to interfere in there. The German State is the regulator, ( establishing and veryfing airline adherence to FTL) , not EASA.

hetfield
18th Jun 2012, 18:25
The German State is the regulatorConcerning legal rights, that statement is correct.

In reality, the opposite is the case!

oversteer
19th Jun 2012, 08:56
This "news" is the front page headline of London's Metro newspaper today :rolleyes:

Pilots declare emergency because they were too tired to land plane | Metro.co.uk (http://www.metro.co.uk/news/902480-pilots-declare-emergency-because-they-were-too-tired-to-land-plane)

misd-agin
19th Jun 2012, 11:51
0000 - 2 hr limo/van drive

0200 - 3+30 flight?
0530 - land

0630 - 3+30 flight?
1015 - landing @MUC


Considering the times fatigue is a threat.

aterpster
19th Jun 2012, 11:57
I don't know.

I had one like that and we went for 16 hours. I was age 53 at the time. It was a L1011, perhaps having the third guy helped.

I did go off sick at the layover point however.

JohnieWalker
19th Jun 2012, 12:19
I imagine they may have had an overnight on the day before, like landing at 0600LT for example, then proceeding to sleep immediately, waking up at 15, walking around, then trying to get a sleep before being driven to MUC. Body cycles pretty much stressed at that point. Then again it's just pure speculation, don't know how AB's Crew Planning is handling this type of things. Those actually happen a lot I suppose, they just usually stay in company VR's...

golfyankeesierra
19th Jun 2012, 13:04
Can't believe this flight is that bad.
BTW Mallorca - Munich in 3hrs 30? You can do that in turboprop but in a A330 it's more like 2hrs 30 (block that is, flight hours will be probably around 2).
I don't think we have the complete picture here; especially the previous duty and cumulative hours will be interesting.

gorter
19th Jun 2012, 15:02
we don't know what their roster in the previous days/weeks. Fatigue is a slow incipient danger that manifests itself over a long time

Green Guard
19th Jun 2012, 15:26
Fatigued Pilots issue Distress Signal on Approach to Munich

...looks like some pilots today should change their proffesion...

PS.... try for example to become priests etc.

JW411
19th Jun 2012, 17:14
Let's face it, just about every pilot coming off the Pond in the early morning of every day into Heathrow or Gatwick is knackered (I speak from long experience). You only have to listen to their voices on the radio.

Are we about to get into a situation whereby pilots are about to start calling Pan in order to get out of the Lambourne hold out of sequence?

If so, how are they ever going to be able to prove that they were more knackered than the others ahead of them?

I doubt that this idea is going to catch on but it would be very interesting if it did.

BOAC
19th Jun 2012, 17:21
"Your PAN and I'll raise you a MayDay":)

Herod
22nd Jun 2012, 15:18
Company SOP to do an autoland if the crew is fatigued? A classic example of treating the symptoms, not the disease.

Plazbot
22nd Jun 2012, 16:32
A fair bit of ill feeling towards the concept of fatigued pilots identifying it and declaring it as an issue. Full props to them. As a person on the other end of the mic, I have had a few occasions of pitiful readbacks that when restated have been accompanied by various versions of 'Sorry,long night'. A great tool to identify where a little fat or slack needs to be cut.

After 20 years of night work, I still get the odd one where I just have not prepared properly due to a multitude of factors. The difference is that when I **** up, I don't end up in a smoking hole.

:ok: to the crew

RoyHudd
22nd Jun 2012, 16:39
Good comment Plazbot.
As one who loses a night's sleep each week (transatlantic), I know just how exhausted one feels around 06-08 when landing. To be truthful, it feels like being pissed, and I certainly slur sometimes on the R/T. And yes, readbacks are tricky. This happens after weeks of no booze at all, just a fatiguing job. And it is the same for the younger pilots, some of who seem to need more sleep!

fireflybob
22nd Jun 2012, 16:46
I think the distinction needs to be made between short term tiredness and long term fatigue.

If you are doing a night duty (or not acclimatised to local time) you might expect to be "tired" at certain times.

Longer term fatigue though is more "battle damage" brought on by successive changes from day to night flights coupled with long duty days.

There have been occasions over the last 40 years of my flying where I have been unable to get any meaningful sleep prior to (for example) an early start. I remember one when I said to the First Officer (as we checked in for a 11 hour duty 4 sector early at 0500) "I hardly got any sleep last night" to which he replied "I've been called from standby and only got 2 hours sleep myself!" So what to do? We completed the duty but I would not like to profess that we were in the best state to do so! Legally we should have called in not fit to fly but this seems to be unofficially frowned upon under the veneer of "we care about safety".

Also I would like to comment on another aspect. Will the new pilots who are entering the profession now be "burned out" by the time they get into their thirties? This constant abuse of the body clock and long duty cycles over many years must eventually exact a toll.

OFSO
22nd Jun 2012, 19:31
Does anyone else suffer from fatigue delayed by 48 hours ?

When at work I'd occasionally have to put in one full day's work 0800-1700 in the office, then 7 hours off-duty but couldn't sleep as it was evening, followed by one night's work 0000-0600 in the control room, then 4 hours off-duty followed by one day's work 1000-1700 in the office.

The next day I'd be fine but the day after that was a zombie.

jetopa
22nd Jun 2012, 20:45
It's all political and nobody can tell me it ain't.

And it is no coincidence either that Ryanair representatives are heavily lobbying at EASA's HQ in Cologne and trying to fight any (in their opinion) unfavourable development of FDT regulation...

It's all about money and the cost of those 'glorified taxi drivers'.

Admiral346
22nd Jun 2012, 22:59
Well, Air Berlin isn't just one company.
It is put togehter by several aquired companies of which one is the former LTU. LTU used to be run rather friendly towards its employees and it is still the old LTU crews flying the A330s.

Now Air Berlin is not known to be overly caring of its staff, at least such are the rumors.
Additionally, Air Berlin has hardly ever turned a profit and is now being funded by a company from Abu Dhabi whose name must not be mentioned here. You can check the middle eastern forum to see.

So in my very personal opinion that can in no way be proven, maybe, just maybe, this is a signal by an old LTU crew towards the management.

Maybe...

in my last airline
26th Jun 2012, 22:09
Last leave November 2011, 3 days in August then next leave Feb 2013. That's good for your fatigue levels isn't it Mr JD!

Lookleft
27th Jun 2012, 01:17
Eran-Tasker says government figures show that the number of would-be pilots presenting themselves for training, and the number of licences being issued, are both going down because the appeal of *piloting as a career is plummeting.
He ascribes this to industry instability, the high entry cost, *unsocial working patterns, and the fact that *piloting is now less well paid than some other professions.(Flight International)

A vicious circle. The less attractive they make it the harder existing pilots will have to work the more fatigued we get the less attractive the job.

Plank Cap
27th Jun 2012, 09:49
For well hidden fatigue issues look no further than certain members of the rising 5 star airlines in the Middle East..........

The 'factorisation' of flying hours, thereby exceeding 900 hours per year routinely, some of the industry's longest sectors flown with inadequate rest facilities, common bad practice of scheduling 24 hr layovers with much back-of-the-clock ops, punitive reporting culture, hiding fatigue reporting statistics, regulator in the airlines' back pocket, rapid expansion and zero pilot representation, with indifferent and pre-historic management......

And yet with lots of other areas in the doldrums, folks are queuing up to join - what to do? We all know the sad logical outcome, we've all been warned and yet the wheel of life in our business keeps repeating itself with the obvious tragic outcomes. Can we never learn...........?

Pika
24th Jul 2012, 12:15
I had read in another forum that the cockpit-crew was fired in the meantime. Has anybody any information about this?

Admiral346
27th Jul 2012, 00:07
Can't get fired for doing things right here.

Geragau
27th Jul 2012, 02:52
Pika
*
Join Date: May 2001
Posts: 5
I had read in another forum that the cockpit-crew was fired in the meantime. Has anybody any information about this?


This cannot be! What is their " crime "?

bubbers44
27th Jul 2012, 04:16
In an MD80 coupled up with a minimums approach to MSY had everything disconect at 300 feet in the clouds because of some turbulence. We corrected everything and broke out and landed.

If you were so fatigued you couldn't land without autoland should you be flying that leg?

I quit flying all nighters because I didn't feel alert enough at 3AM to feel safe. They didn't feel alert enough to land so did the PAN transmission. That is not safe either. Some of us can't sleep during the day, I can't.

Dream Land
27th Jul 2012, 04:38
Looks like they need to start stocking their medical kits with Red Bull! :ok:

Denti
27th Jul 2012, 08:11
Nobody was fired. No repercussions whatsoever for the crew. Only the rotation was changed and there is no transport by taxi before the flight now.

Pika
27th Jul 2012, 09:47
@Denti

Thanks for clarifying this. I couldn´t quite believe it myself when I read it. But management decisions are sometimes funny...:8

b263354
17th Aug 2012, 16:41
...reading this bears to mind the incident at Schiphol where the aircrew lost situational awareness (this time due to brabbling to each other?) and CFIT in the polder just short of the runway.

If one is tired after a long haul or an international flight or a red-eye, ok, but to resort to a "side trick" in order to get clearance for a non-sop ... brings questions to mind.

I know by own account that uncoupling the FMS and doing a manual is a better way to wake up then any(if company sop's permit blabla). Now I do give credence to the crew that they had the nerve and balls to declare a situation, but this does need an investigation and consequences. Both pilots too tired !? Thinking an auto-land is then better, WTF? What if something disconnects mentioned in a post before at MDA or DA, engine failure, bird strike, runway incursion etc, what about scanning the instruments what is 10x more harder and sleep inducing when you are doing absolutely NOTHING and tired instead of excerting physical motion? If I were ATC I would give them a GA and vector them awake, when landed have them call me, or else have a MD meet them on the apron!

But fine..., years ago I saw a documentary of the pilots "burdened" with operation give it a name in Irak. Came out these guys (and girls to some extent) were so high on pep pills they may just as well had been snorting coke on their ND! Do we need to start resorting to these measures taken from the military? The HUD (which is a positive thing) is already introducing itself in the cockpit...

But...as always, good work getting the dollars asset safely on the ground + passengers. Just something really wrong with the airline and/or BOTH pilots!