Where does this leave Professional Pilots ??

[autobrake3]

Flying has never been a 9 to 5 job and never will be. Commercial + safety will never be an easy issue. Complaining to MPs who are generally unsympathetic to our cause merely washes more dirty clothes in front of an already highly sceptical public. I hate feeling knackered too but it goes with turf that we have all voluntarily chosen.

[Flex33]

Expect the next amendment to your Ops manual to include some text about power naps whilst on duty.

Just who will use this get out of jail free card first?

[SOPS]

I will add one thing here. Our airline has a policy that if a crew is positioned back to base, due delay or breakdown, and the total duty time is out side the legal limit ( as applied to operating crew), they then have the option of a room at the airport Hilton or a taxi home (and back the next day to pick up the car)

[wizzflight]

Join Emirates. They pick you up for work and drive you home afterwards, all in Volvo stationcars! (I don't think they do it because we are so precious, Emirates likes the control it gives them and it makes sure pilots and cabin staff don't get killed in the extremely dangerous roads here).
I used to spent hours in traffic jams after a 16 hours duty back in Europe and I do feel sorry for you guys.

[Croqueteer]

A few years ago in the cargo world a few of us insisted on hotac when finishing long duty periods in the deepest Europe before positioning back to UK. The company quality control manager accused us of doing this to get more hours duty pay. With plonkers like that in charge, what hope have we?

[Mowgli]

I am one of those who lives 1 hr 30 from base, and I fly for a charter airline. The uninitiated will already be aware of the potential problems by reading this thread. Taking personal responsibility is essential, because post Gary Hart, things have changed. I stay in B&B often before an early start, or if I will be working a hard week, but after the end of the working period, naturally I want to drive home. Staying in B&Bs, and the cost of my journey, uses all my in flight allowances. The only self fix solution is to move closer to my base. The problem is that LGW is an expensive area. If I was based at STN or BRS I could afford to live there. I get paid the same as colleagues who are based in more affordable areas, and my company does not offer me:

1. A relocation allowance.

2. A "London" pay subsidy.

3. Accommodation for me when working at my base.

So, there is a big problem here. Additionally, when I do drive home (M25 then M3), I can't pull off the motorway until the first service station which is 50 miles. Sometimes I struggle to stay awake until the service station where I sleep for an hour or so.

So that's us - the same must be true for our passengers too - this is relevant for the lack of stopping places argument.

I know I should move closer to LGW, but my problem is the drive of only 50 miles where I can stop and kip. Would not the problem still exist if I did move closer but still with a 30 mile drive (probably the same journey time non-motorway)?

Seems to me that the only solution is for the company to provide some accommodation to get a kip in before driving on those occasions when you're really knackered. And the Transport Authority should build more stopping places.

One way or another, it's going to cost some money. And it can't be my money because mine is all gone by the end of the month.

I agree with someone earlier who suggested getting this in the public domain by writing to your MP.

[had_enough]

One of the problems with moving for the job in aviation is that you could be moving every 10 minutes.

Staying centrally to a bunch of airfields is the only way to have any stability in your home life !

[had_enough]

I've just realised that the thread has moved off track somewhat - my initial post is based on the fact that it is now deemed to be a criminal act to drive a car having been awake for 24 hours but we regularly land aeroplanes with several hundred people on board having been awake - perhaps with a short nap - for much longer periods.

[Mowgli]

Yeah, I hear you LM. I had an overnight flight in the summer and I was PNF for the return. I was micro sleeping all the way in on the approach. I had taken all reasonable steps to be rested before the flight. The problem was a physiological one. The previous 4 days had been very early starts. The 5th "day" was start work in the evening and by 3am I was as useful as a chocolate ashtray.

I can't make my body adjust like that. Yes, I could have called in sick, but I wasn't tired when I went to work, but about 6 hours later zzzzzz. It was a crewing responsibility. I did try and take a power nap about 2 hrs before the approach, but it didn't happen.

I know the thread has wandered from the flight safety side, but apart from the incident I've just mentioned, it's the drive home that worries me most, because usually adrenaline kicks in when I'm flying the important bits. In the car it's more difficult. Just ban overnight flights - we all hate them!!

[Arkroyal]

Wouldn’t it be nice if everyone could argue civilly and calmly?
Powerranger, I did not say ‘So the number of deaths changes not the magnitude of the crime?’ I stated with irrefutable logic that the consequences of an action cannot alter its cause.
There is another big difference between Selby and the occurrences you quote and that is the question of intent. The action of carelessly falling asleep at the wheel and running off the road can only result in a train crash if the people who designed the road screwed up. Perhaps the authorities who planned and built the M62 are equally culpable?

[keepin it in trim]

This is a reasonably hot topic where I work as well. I am employed in a flying post which requires me to meet a 15 mins to airborne time from 0800 to 2200 followed immediately by a 45 mins to airborne from 2200 to 0800. It is a 24 hour duty with a hand over, crew to crew, at 0930. The job involves flying regularly in abysmal weather, on reactive tasking, quite often with other peoples lives depending upon you showing up. Obviously you cannot sleep during the 15 mins readiness period and it is not uncommon to be tasked late in the evening and then operate literally all night.

Each duty day is followed by a standby duty with a call-out to airborne requirement of 60 mins. Duties are regularly done in blocks of 3, day in, day call, day in, day call, day in, day call. This is usually followed by a few days off. Fatigue was a real issue before the Selby incident. People are now thinking very hard about the implications of the verdict and the judges comments.

At a medical a couple of years ago the Doc expressed horror at my working routine. However, he didn't explain where the extra crews (money) would be found to cover if it was changed. From the comments above an awful lot of people are in a very similar boat. Luckily I live within 30 mins of my base and in a reasonably remote area, so the number of people exposed to my driving after a shift is relatively small. I have to get home to sleep somehow and public transport is not an option. Does that excuse me if I have an accident, probably not, but what else can I, or the thousands of other people who have similar working routines, do about it.

[DwainCleana]

There are many valid points to this topic, could the Transport Authority be held resonsible in not providing rest facilities and therefore forcing a motorist to continue driving whilst unfit and not pull over into a convenient lay-by. I recon O.J's lawyers would have worked on that one. Aviation is a legal mine field and most of us break a few regulations every day without realising it. A recent statistic claimed it would take about 240years to read all the laws which have currently been passed. Many of these appear to be of little consequence but what has been brought home by the above case is how easily it could have been us, either on a motorway or making our burning mark in history in a "crash comic". We have our responsibilities to the general public and to our families whom we have to feed. There is no way we can legislate to make operations as safe at 4am as at 11am, our body specs do not allow for that luxury. Evolution programmed our bodies to rise at sun-up and sleep at night and they will only accept a slow change in the order of 2 hours per day. It is all very fine to legislate for proper rest but it is necessary for an indepenent party to confirm we are rested, we are not able to rate ourselves. Sleep fatique impairs our judgement. Note the drunk driver who considers he was driving perfectly when stopped by police; at least he could resort to a breathalizer. Maybe a practical test for us at sign-in would be which is more attractive another day off or a club sandwich.
Incase some think I am unsympathetic, let me state that except for the spacing between a row of 50ft trees and my car having a sense of self preservation I wouldn't be tapping away on this keyboard. That was on the way to a night duty. Since that reprieve I declined an offer to fly from MAN when my BRS base closed; a 4hr drive. I traded that for a life of 14hours across the Pacific which has partially solved the problem as I can't go home after work.
What I can highly recommend is to get hold of a copy of "The 24hr Society" which should be required reading for all shift workers. It will keep you awake for hours.Promise.

[5 APU's captain]

Nothing new...
Are you going to change the world?

[PowerRanger]

Arkroyal - you want civil discussion and that's fine by me.

However, don't come here and try and blame the road-builders because a criminally irresponsible individual took the lives of 10 men.

He chose not to sleep. He chose to drive. He chose to continue when he had already been forced to stop through tiredness.

The result - 10 men were forced to die because of his crass stupidity.

He then chose to lie to try and save his own wretched neck.

And you try and say it was the road-builders who must take some of the blame!!!

Someone here asked me what am I like??

I have no doubt whatsoever that Hart nad no maliscious intent. Of course he didn't set out to cause this disaster.

But that's not really the point is it?

He has personal responsibility for his own actions like we all do. He made the choices all by himself. There was nobody else involved. His choices led directly to deaths. It really is very simple.

As for the road builders being to blame worlds almost fail me. I pray, really pray, that you said that tongue in cheek.

If not then God help your passengers.

Was it the architect of the WTC's fault on 11 September? After all, if the building hadn't been so high, such an icon, then Bin Laden never would have sent his killers to fly into it.

[forget]

Power Ranger , Ark Royal's point that the lack of safety barriers contributed to this disaster is valid. As it happens, Gary Hart has been found guilty because he drove when he knew he was mentally wrecked. Now let's say that the circumstances were different and that a tyre had, in fact, blown. With an innocent driver who do you then blame, and with ten dead someone must carry the can. Any design of overhead motorway which allows an out of control vehicle to land on a high speed railway track is seriously deficient. A few thousand pounds worth of crash barrier would have prevented this - knackered driver or tyre blow out - full stop.

[Arkroyal]

forgot,

Thanks for seeing the point which seems to elude PR. I have at no point defended Hart's actions, merely questioned the way the law comes down on those easy to nail whilst allowing the bigger fish to get away with it.

It should not be possible for a car running off a road to cause a train crash. Now PR, would you let me know how my views (which you don't have to agree with, but you must admit are reasonably and calmly argued) place my passengers in peril?

Nothing in life is 'very simple'.

'worlds (?) almost fail me' too.

[radeng]

Arkroyal,

Shortly after the Selby crash, there was an article in a railway magazine querying the safety of push-pull trains. There was a nasty accident in Scotland in the 70's because of the leading vehicle (driving trailer) being too light when a cow was hit. Had the train at Selby been a conventional loco hauled trained with a 90 ton loco as the leading vehicle, there's an arguable chance that fewer people - if any - would have died. As you say, vehicles shouldn't (especially relatively small light vehicles) be able to fall on a line and cause a disaster. The fact that it can happen demands a scape goat. Push-pull operation is a lot cheaper, though.

[ 17 December 2001: Message edited by: radeng ]

[M.Mouse]

Just for the benefit of those not familiar with the detail. Mr. Hart and his Landrover + trailer with car went of the road and travelled something in the region of 100 metres across a field before plunging through a fence and down an embankment. He did not just fall off the motorway straight on to the railway line.

It was shown that he had covered some 65 miles in 70 minutes and not all of that on motorways. It would be interesting to know what speed he was doing when he departed the motorway and how long before he became awake enough to realise what was happening and attempted to brake.

His actions leading up to the accident were bad enough but to my mind he should have had the decency to admit his guilt and avoid putting the bereaved through a full trial. I have no doubt that will be taken into account during sentencing.

As far as driving when tired. Does not common sense and personal responsibility come into it? We are in grave danger of trying to make the world entirely safe. Unfortunately life carries an element of risk. We in the UK are well on the way to fully adopting the US condition of trying to eliminate all risk not least because of the risk of being sued.

Fatiguing rosters do need serious attention from the powers that be but if you have just returned from a long night duty it is surely your responsibility not to drive unless you feel adequately rested? To say it is the employer's responsibility is really leading us down the path of the nanny state and then being being compelled to take rest before driving home.

I presume the fact that we are often very tired would account for the increase in my car insurance premium when I became a commercial pilot

[ 17 December 2001: Message edited by: M.Mouse ]

[I'd rather]

Just wanted to second Mouse's post above - couldn't agree with you more.

[IcePack]

My Airline allows us a Hotac after 16 hours duty. BUT we still have to self drive to the hotel!
What a silly world, as surely the civil aviation authorities should take more interest in Pilot fatigue than they actually do. Maybe this case will have some influance.