Pilots suspended for being too knackered to fly!
Join Date: Sep 2000
Location: min rest
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Think you are fatigued?
SOP IMHO is play it by these rules to keep your job and protect your life!
Make a Herculean effort and stagger into see a doctor, tell him your problem, show him your log book and the duty hours that fatigued you the past months. Show him the new duties you feel unable to face and get a sick note.
Then inform rostering soonest you are sick and that a sick note for so many days has been issued.
They will look through this number of days as a joke and ask when you think you will be fit to fly again and you must reply only that you are seeing the doctor again at ...time on... day and will let them know as soon as the doctor has made a decision on you.
When they demand details of your problem only refer them to the doctor, who will not tell them due patient/doc confidentiality. It helps if you forwarn the doctor he is likely to be interrogated by some hostile kid from rostering. Only tell him this good news after he has issued your sick note.
Doctors get very defensive if their proffesional opinion is likely to be questioned having made a decision and signed your sick note.
You have got to be careful and responsible when going sick due fatigue and log events as they occur and keep copies of all the certificates as rostering often dock your wages as a "No Show" if they failed to cover your flight.
If fatigued outa Doctors consulting hours call in stating you are sick at the earliest opportunity to give rostering a sporting chance to find someone who has not had a beer on his day off.
They hate to use standby crews if they can grab a guy on a day off as they allways want to protect their standby.
SOP for any pilot on a day off in my company was to have some beer before answering any incomeing phone call and even before checking in for a company flight when returning from annual leave. They sometimes needed you to operate it and had seen your name on the passenger list.
When reporting sick, rostering sop is to demand to know the reason why you are sick. Be very careful only tell them you feel very crook but you will advise them as soon as you have seen a doctor.
Then do just that and see the doctor at the very earliest opportunity then bung your sick note into rostering immediately then and only then can you can sleep for 19hours.
If the doctor gives you a certificate so you can sleep and the certificate says 5days off do not sign yourself off fit and go back to work after 24hours for the nice trip rostering rings up and now offers.
If you do it will destroy your case and next time you see the doctor he will be basically anti as he will have had a call from rostering saying you are airborne after 24hours and what the hell were you doing signing the bloke off for 5 days!
If you are fatigued and need to rewind your sleep tape free from jet lag make sure after you have had several sleeps and when feeling better you stay off the streets and outa any clubs or social events and use your certificate as the doctor ordered. Otherwise the company or collegues will quite rightly have your command.
In my experiance doctors initially give 5 days off if they feel a pilot
is fatigued and presently they back the pilot as they know the score about max duty min rest roster abuse.
I heard one doctor comment to another doctor that our rosters were...
"A recipe for Premature mortality."
Makes you think a bit about the job/proffession we have signed up for.
SOP IMHO is play it by these rules to keep your job and protect your life!
Make a Herculean effort and stagger into see a doctor, tell him your problem, show him your log book and the duty hours that fatigued you the past months. Show him the new duties you feel unable to face and get a sick note.
Then inform rostering soonest you are sick and that a sick note for so many days has been issued.
They will look through this number of days as a joke and ask when you think you will be fit to fly again and you must reply only that you are seeing the doctor again at ...time on... day and will let them know as soon as the doctor has made a decision on you.
When they demand details of your problem only refer them to the doctor, who will not tell them due patient/doc confidentiality. It helps if you forwarn the doctor he is likely to be interrogated by some hostile kid from rostering. Only tell him this good news after he has issued your sick note.
Doctors get very defensive if their proffesional opinion is likely to be questioned having made a decision and signed your sick note.
You have got to be careful and responsible when going sick due fatigue and log events as they occur and keep copies of all the certificates as rostering often dock your wages as a "No Show" if they failed to cover your flight.
If fatigued outa Doctors consulting hours call in stating you are sick at the earliest opportunity to give rostering a sporting chance to find someone who has not had a beer on his day off.
They hate to use standby crews if they can grab a guy on a day off as they allways want to protect their standby.
SOP for any pilot on a day off in my company was to have some beer before answering any incomeing phone call and even before checking in for a company flight when returning from annual leave. They sometimes needed you to operate it and had seen your name on the passenger list.
When reporting sick, rostering sop is to demand to know the reason why you are sick. Be very careful only tell them you feel very crook but you will advise them as soon as you have seen a doctor.
Then do just that and see the doctor at the very earliest opportunity then bung your sick note into rostering immediately then and only then can you can sleep for 19hours.
If the doctor gives you a certificate so you can sleep and the certificate says 5days off do not sign yourself off fit and go back to work after 24hours for the nice trip rostering rings up and now offers.
If you do it will destroy your case and next time you see the doctor he will be basically anti as he will have had a call from rostering saying you are airborne after 24hours and what the hell were you doing signing the bloke off for 5 days!
If you are fatigued and need to rewind your sleep tape free from jet lag make sure after you have had several sleeps and when feeling better you stay off the streets and outa any clubs or social events and use your certificate as the doctor ordered. Otherwise the company or collegues will quite rightly have your command.
In my experiance doctors initially give 5 days off if they feel a pilot
is fatigued and presently they back the pilot as they know the score about max duty min rest roster abuse.
I heard one doctor comment to another doctor that our rosters were...
"A recipe for Premature mortality."
Makes you think a bit about the job/proffession we have signed up for.
Join Date: Sep 2003
Location: here and there but mostly lgw
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Nice theory but it takes five days to see your gp as the waiting rooms are full of sick (apparrantly) people.
Also calling in fatigued is a theoretical luxury in most summer charter companies.
just tell em youve got the ****s off the crew food, much more plausible.
Farty
Also calling in fatigued is a theoretical luxury in most summer charter companies.
just tell em youve got the ****s off the crew food, much more plausible.
Farty
Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: london
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If an airline was suspending an individual for being fatigued !
Which is a SAFETY issue .
The lawyers ,papers ,plus CAA would have a field day.
If an airline is paying a Captain for his safety judgment .Then that applies to both himself ,his crew ,plus passengers freight and the ship itself.
ANO
Which is a SAFETY issue .
The lawyers ,papers ,plus CAA would have a field day.
If an airline is paying a Captain for his safety judgment .Then that applies to both himself ,his crew ,plus passengers freight and the ship itself.
ANO
Join Date: Sep 1999
Location: UK
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As pilots we should report to our GPs if fatigued and tell crewing/rostering the real reason for our time off sick. Only then will the full extent of the problem be fully realised so that something can be done about it. What we need is a level playing field for FTLs which should reflect a realistic approach to avoiding fatigue. If all companies had to comply with more rigorous rules, no one particular operator would be disadvantaged. Ok, so the customer would have to pay a little more for the ticket, but if they knew now how knackered we get then I'm sure they'd be happy to pay to have an alert crew up front.
This is the professional, responsible way. At present, people go sick with flu, back aches etc, and the problem is being hidden.
This is the professional, responsible way. At present, people go sick with flu, back aches etc, and the problem is being hidden.
