Fatigue - Australian Aviation article

[georgeeipi]

Interesting article in Australian Aviation
https://australianaviation.com.au/2018/07/human-factor-understanding-fatigue/

The practice of starting a night shift with little or no sleep in the preceding 24 hour period has been happening for as long as I can remember. And even after all the human factors research, mandatory human factors training, fatigue modelling tools, and introduction of fatigue risk management systems, the ATSB's initial finding still ended up blaming the captain and it requires a magazine article to point out that the industry still does what it does and something needs to be changed. How do we fix a culture that is clearly broken?

[Lead Balloon]

Don't worry. Any decade now CASA will finish its review and reform of CAO 48.x.

Hopefully the penalty for flying fatigued will be a life ban.

[WetCompass]

Hopefully the penalty for flying fatigued will be a life ban.

Hey Lead Balloon, I hope you are not serious about blaming individual pilots. The point of the article might be summed up in the paragraph:
'For example, if most of the team can handle a night shift in accordance with the rules yet one team member (we'll call him Chris) cannot, what assumptions do you make? Have you ever heard phrases such as, "Chris is lazy", or "Chris just deson't cut it in this workplace"? Chris may be more than competent to perform most tasks required to a high standard, it's just that Chris's individual biological differences result in a small part of the workplace routine not meeting his needs.'
I have seen that sort of blame in the workplace going on, "If you don't fly when you are allocated a shift then the company doesn't make money. If the company doesn't make money then we don't get paid". A decision by a pilot to decline or delay a shift because they are fatigued may be an excellent safety decision rather than being "laziness". But how does the company and the team treat such a decision is more to the point.