long hours mean more crashes

[Hwel]

New Scientist (20 sept, page 10) is reporting a FAA study that shows that the probability of a crash increases 65% if a pilot operates for more than 10 hours and is 5.6 times greater if flying for more than 13 hours.

Certainly makes a mockery of this new EU FTL system with 14 hour duties. Comments?

[lamina]

Yup, but currently no one gives a large brown one about the proposed EU FTL's. Watch them all squeal when they become reality!

[rupetime]

As a vast amount of accidents happen on landing or take off isnt a longer sector therefore reducing the risk of an accident ?

Tongue is in cheek when typing this.

RT

[GEENY]

RT,which planet are you from?
In Italy there are practically no limits:two pilots(with INS or equival.) could legally (?) shoot an approach 18 hours (or more) after they got up (anytime of the day),becomes 24 hrs or more for three pilots (no crew rest area needed).
And is coming your way:Volare flies to Europe (and UK).
G

[FlapsOne]

GEENY

Suggest you look up the phrase 'Tongue in cheek'!

[av8boy]

As a vast amount of accidents happen on landing or take off isnt a longer sector therefore reducing the risk of an accident ?

I use similar logic in my commute. I am told that nearly 80% of fatal automobile accidents occur within 25 miles of the driver's home. Therefore (and I think everyone will find this logic impeccable), I KNOW that once I pass the 25 mile mark I can drive four times as foolishly without increasing my exposure! Now I suppose everyone will want to know where that point is geographically...

The point IS an interesting one though. Seems intuitive that the threats associated with start, taxi, departure, climb, descent, landing, taxi, and shut down (mechanical issues, crowded environment, etc) are considerably greater than those encountered in cruise. So my interest is piqued. How fatigued does a long haul crew have to be before the threat reaches or surpasses that faced by crews doing multiple short legs in a day? (in other words, to what was the long haul crew in the study compared? Are we talking 10 hours compared to nine, where both are single legs, or are we also considering getting beat to hell on a bunch of high workload legs?) Anecdotally, I would offer that, in my military flying career (transport) a day of shuttling troops and equipment between two Hawaiian islands (say, four or five round trips) was substantially more intense than any single trip across the pond.

Now I'm going to have to do some reading!

Dave

[Hwel]

The original article is a little vauge but I think we can assume that it means long duty days as opposed long individual flights. The study was based on 55 commercial crashes in the USA between 1978 and 1999.

[Ralph Cramden]

This post does not make a lot of sense to me.

What is meant by "pilot operates"? Is this flight time, air time, duty time, what? Doesn't just taking off increase your chances of a crash infinitely? What is the base line here?

Flying is all about risk management. We can never get the risk down to zero. If the risk is 1 in 100,000,000 for example, is it really significant if the risk of a crash is 5.6 times greater after 13 hrs.?

There are lies, damn lies and statistics.

[asw28-866]

Hmmm,
Doesn't HPL state that Flight Crew monitoring capability is significantly degraded after only 30 Minutes? Thus 9,10,14,24 hour duties...who cares no-one is paying attention anyway!

[jungly]

If 25% of fatal car crashes are caused by a drunk driver!

That means 75% are caused by sober drivers!

It is therefore statistically proven that it is safer to drink and drive??

[B Sousa]

Jungly
You hit the nail on the head according to a professor friend of mine. Sober People are screwing up the weave pattern of drunk drivers causing accidents....
I believe him. www.gdavidhoward.com If you visit Florida ask him, he will agree.....

[Ignition Override]

Av8boy said it first, but it has been proven somewhere that for a given duty period (without rest), a crew which flies four of five legs, never mind the many thousands of pilots who daily fly seven or more each day, all face a much greater risk of mishap than for a long-haul crew which must struggle through one approach. But this contrast is not intended to understate the fatigue and disrupted circadian rhythms often faced by long-haul crews.

The short-haul, two-pilot crew might be familiar with many of the cities they operate into, however, that does not minimize the risks faced when climbing/descending with multiple clearances (many are blocked or the call-sign is slurred by the controller, who often is quite saturated by VHF/UHF traffic and various frequencies?) and approaches, whether ILS or so-called "non-prec.", near thunderstorms or in icing conditions. Never mind all of this, which combine with aircraft systems' problems and worsening runway conditions to demand 100% of our concentration.

Incidentally, how much more is each passenger or hull insured, pro-rated for the number of passengers or aircraft type, regarding short versus long-haul?

As for off-duty risks (besides driving in crazy traffic), while cutting down tall weeds today in a field between two popular jogging trails at the Wolf River, I was about four feet from stepping on a long copperhead snake (which was moving away from my machete when I saw it-luckily my running shoes, although they would have offered little protection and were moving too slowly to alert the snake to any vibrations, were not fast enough to step on it...). Maybe this was an indirect result from having decent vacation credit time in our contract? Boots should be worn when blazing any trail!

[Big Tudor]

IR

What was the snake doing wearing running shoes??

Fatigue associated with number of landings has long been recognised in the UK which is why the allowable FDP reduces with the increase in sectors. However, what I can't understand is the blanket statement of '14 hours duty is unsafe'. These levels are the normal maximum limits in a number of EU countries already (please note I say the maximum limits not the normal duty days). Are we saying that German & French crews are more fatigued than their British counterparts? Don't have any figures to hand but I don't see a marked increase in fatigue related incidents by German or French airlines.

[Hwel]

The basis of the FAA study was that its obvious that the more fatigued you are the higher the possibility of an incident. However there was not any statistical evidence to back this up. The statistical rise is dramatic at duty periods exceeding 13 hours. At the moment some EU contries have NO flight time limitations. The current proposal by the EU is for a 14 hour limit, not based on any science at all. Got to hope the UK retains its 13 hour limit.

Good advertising campaign ,Fly BA- you are 5.6 times less likely to have a crash than an Austrian carrier.

[Ignition Override]

Big Tudor: I can't remember how strong French coffee is, but the Germans and especially the Austrian pilots have strong Turkish coffee (since the Turkish siege and defeat at Vienna in about 1685, which resulted in many bags of free coffee, strewn about the landscape) to help them keep awake. That stuff is so dark and thick that it looks like Guinness, but Guinness has no river 'sludge' at the bottom

[dusk2dawn]

Is this article (the FAA thingy - not the New Scientist eddition) on-line somewhere ?

[av8boy]

Found an older one by the same chap which was generally a Part 121 study, but not this one. I'm after it though. When I get it I'll post it.

Dave

[Nineiron]

There is a phenomenon of 'minimum activity fatigue'. I've flown five shorthaul night freight sectors with less fatigue than flying two, with a five hour break in a crew room between. Same duty period. Even with long haul, a turboprop with a relatively high cruise workload is to a cetain extent less fatiguing than a lower workload jet aircraft over the same FTP. The landing at the end of a longhaul flight can often seem like starting a new day's work, or at best a split duty