IT'S ONLY A MATTER OF TIME.

[BARKINGMAD]

BBC News - Farne Islands grounded ship: MV Danio's lookout 'asleep' (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tyne-23803512)

Following the unusual accidents recently, when will we see this cause being openly and honestly ascribed to an aircraft mishap, with potentially greater impact, no pun intended, on the travelling public and the unfortunates under/in the flight path of said aircraft.

Both regulators and companies appear to be going to incredible lengths to avoid the issue of transport workers' fatigue and working practices being aired in connection with accidents in the airline industry.

To the xAAs and the CEOs I would say, the elephant is very much alive and moving in the living room and it's time you all addressed the issue responsibly!

Alas I know that such awarenes is unlikely to be displayed, until finally we have a successful corporate manslaughter charge against company execs post-accident and the sight of corporate suits being led off to prison in handcuffs will certainly concentrate their minds.

So let's sit back and await the "Tombstone Imperative" once again?

[HDRW]

An airline pilot friend of mine admits to nodding off in flight once, then waking up:
'Oh, sorry John, how long was I out?'
'John? JOHN!!!'

My first real job was as a computer operator on an IBM mainframe, which was shiftwork. On a nightshift week, I found that if I stayed awake though Monday and went to work Monday night, then came home on Tuesday morning and went to bed, I'd wake up Tuesday evening feeling half-dead, and moped around not doing anything for the evening, then going to work again. Rinse, repeat though the week, so by the end I'd done nothing but work, sleep, and feel too lousy to do anything, so I'd effectively lost a week of my life.

So I decided to stay up. I'd usually make it to Wednesday morning OK (no sleep for about 48hrs) but sometimes the drive home was 'interesting'. I could have the radio up loud, the window open, my head out in the breeze, and I still couldn't stay awake - even holding one eye open with my fingers wouldn't work! When this happened I'd pull into a layby and get half an hour's kip, which was enough that I could then drive home.

I was young and stupid, and I certainly wouldn't do it now, but it taught me that if you're really tired, *nothing* will keep you awake. In the context of this place, 'we' really need to accept this and tackle it as a problem, and making it the pilots' responsibility to stay awake won't (doesn't) work. Like spotting your own errors, it's not effective, so someone/something needs to do it.

Perhaps some sort of challenge/response that needs to be handled every now and then when the crew haven't made any inputs to anything for a while, and a wake up call if they don't respond?

Oh, and it would be a good idea in road vehicles, too!

[wiggy]

Perhaps some sort of challenge/response that needs to be handled every now and then when the crew haven't made any inputs to anything for a while, and a wake up call if they don't respond?

Already done on some aircraft...if there's no pilot input to certain flight deck switchery then after X minutes you get a nice little message on the screens, along the lines of "pilot response"...if you don't respond it gets a bit noisy :\..if you continue to fail to respond it gets really noisy :eek: