Apnea, early starts blamed in Hawaii pilots' nap

[manrow]

Huck.

You are on the right track there with some good examples!

[niknak]

There is a subtle difference between being tired and being fatigued.

I can't remember exactly where the reference is stated, but the Medical profession and the UK CAA recognise it as follows:

When you are tired, you are able to recognise and react to a given situation.

When you are fatigued, you are often unable to recognise and nearly always unable to react to the same situation.

Given the hours that pilots have to put in before and during a long haul flight, it would be interesting to know who would admit to being "tired" and "fatigued".

[bzh]

In our company it's ok to have a rest in the flight deck, simple rules, one pilot at the time, advise the back end and schedule a call no more than 45min after being advise just in case the second pilot dosed off. and wake up at least 20min before TOD...but on a short flight they must have been tired before leaving....

Anyways North America has to enforce stronger rules on duty days and ban continues duty, impose restrictions on red eyes and give better protections to pilots turning down flights because of fatigue.....ALPA where are you????

BZH
EX cargo driver....

[Teal]

I'll never forget finishing ATC nightshifts and, (particularly after having already worked the previous morning shift), momentarily falling asleep on the one hour drive home, not to mention driving thru red lights and stopping at green lights. That's fatigue. Meanwhile the supervisor or senior ATCs usually had the luxury of a 4 or 5 hour nap whilst 'the workers' ran the centre.

[PAXboy]

Non-pilot speaking
bzh

In our company it's ok to have a rest in the flight deck, simple rules, one pilot at the time, advise the back end and schedule a call no more than 45min after being advise just in case the second pilot dosed off. and wake up at least 20min before TOD

That sounds like common sense. Which means that very few companies will do it. I have often read that cat-napping is meant to be a good way to lengthen life, by restoring you in the middle of your 'day'.

[Oilhead]

Didn't waste time getting down!

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/A...25ZZ/PHNL/PHTO

Look at the RoD once they started down....


Canadair Regional Jet CRJ-200 (twin-jet) (CRJ2/)
Origin Honolulu Intl (PHNL)
Destination Hilo Intl (PHTO)
Other flights between these airports
Route MKK4 PULPS V21 PUMIC V15
Date Wednesday, Feb 13, 2008
Duration 29 minutes
Status Arrived 8 days ago (track log)
Proposed/Assigned Actual/Estimated
Departure 09:29AM HST 09:25AM HST
Arrival 10:06AM HST 09:54AM HST
Speed 416 kts
Altitude 21000 feet

Time Position Ground
speed Altitude
Eastern TZ Latitude Longitude kts Feet
02:25PM 21.32 -157.88 160 900
02:26PM 21.27 -157.85 220 3200
02:27PM 21.22 -157.80 250 5400
02:28PM 21.20 -157.72 270 7900
02:29PM 21.20 -157.65 280 10300
02:30PM 21.18 -157.55 310 11500
02:31PM 21.17 -157.45 330 12800
02:32PM 21.15 -157.35 350 14200
02:33PM 21.15 -157.25 360 15900
02:34PM 21.12 -157.15 370 16800
02:35PM 21.07 -157.05 390 17700
02:36PM 21.02 -156.93 390 18900
02:37PM 20.97 -156.83 390 19800
02:38PM 20.92 -156.73 400 21000
02:39PM 20.87 -156.62 410 21000
02:40PM 20.80 -156.50 440 21000
02:41PM 20.75 -156.38 440 21000
02:42PM 20.68 -156.27 440 21000
02:43PM 20.63 -156.15 450 21000
02:44PM 20.57 -156.03 450 21000
02:45PM 20.52 -155.92 450 21000
02:46PM 20.45 -155.80 440 21000
02:47PM 20.40 -155.68 450 21000
02:48PM 20.33 -155.57 450 21000
02:49PM 20.28 -155.45 450 21000
02:50PM 20.23 -155.35 450 21000
02:51PM 20.15 -155.22 450 21000
02:52PM 20.03 -155.15 460 21000
02:53PM 19.92 -155.10 460 21000
02:54PM 19.80 -155.05 450 21000
02:55PM 19.70 -155.00 460 21000
02:56PM 19.57 -154.93 460 21000
02:57PM 19.45 -154.87 460 21000
02:58PM 19.33 -154.82 450 21000
02:59PM 19.22 -154.75 450 21000
03:00PM 19.13 -154.67 440 20800
03:01PM 19.18 -154.57 390 21000
03:02PM 19.30 -154.58 400 21000
03:03PM 19.42 -154.60 400 21000
03:04PM 19.52 -154.60 390 18700
03:05PM 19.62 -154.62 360 13500
03:06PM 19.72 -154.63 350 8200
03:07PM 19.78 -154.70 330 3200
03:08PM 19.75 -154.78 290 1500
03:09PM 19.73 -154.85 220 1500
03:10PM 19.72 -154.90 200 1500
03:11PM 19.72 -154.97 190 900
03:12PM 19.72 -155.02 150 200

[JEP]

Wouldn't a communication failure be a more plausable cause ?

They were on vectoring for the destination, standing by for descend, and finally realizing, this can not be right.
Reselecting the right frequency, kicking the box or whatever, and then get in contact with ATC (again).

Lost comm is not that unusual.

[sevenstrokeroll]

Lost com...unlikely and if so, then why didn't they follow regs?

evidently transponder was working, no lost com squak?

[flown-it]

How about missed frequency change. We've all heard ATC trying to contact someone. I recall watching TOD disappear behind wondering why no clearance to descend. No answer from ATC so a check of the chart revealed we had missed a frequency change. We called on the correct frequency but were now way beyond normal TOD. We managed to persuade ATC to let us max rate descend as opposed to a hold to lose altitude!! Red faces but no harm ... no foul!!

[Mr.Brown]

If you fly your life might well be in the hands of air traffic controllers who have been up all night.. If you have to visit hospital with an emergency, you may be operated on by a doctor who has worked twice as hard as any pilot or controller..... There are plenty more people in the world who manage their working hours without being unduly fatigued - I did it for nigh on 40 years. It's just a matter of managing one's life appropriately.

This is all very true, but those jobs are much more exciting than a commercial pilots.
No disrespect to pilots, but having to adjust altitude, heading etc on an autopilot and changing radio frequency every now and then with the odd fuel calculation is not excatly edge of your seat stuff. So a bad nights sleep followed by an uneventful day in a flight deck will but most people to sleep.

I say if you feel tired in the flight deck, turn off the autopilot, that'll keep you awake for a while.

[leftseatview]

it would sure keep the pax awake!

[MungoP]

Not sure that simply switching off the a/p would have that much effect... cars don't have A/Ps and plenty of people fall asleep driving...many years back, my nights flying the Bandit ( no a/p) were plagued by fatigue... I'm someone who can't sleep a minute when travelling as SLF... whatever the time/length of trip, I'm awake... put me in front of those instruments and I begin to be hypnotised by the glow of the lights... lack of sleep..
On one occasion returning to 'Saafend' at the end of a sleepless week of night freight we arrived in the London TMA with totally cr@ap wx.. vis to mins...turbulence, icing the lot.. remember thinking "I'm going to have to stay awake for this" as we closed on the localiser.. remember thinking it again just as a hand slapped me on the shoulder as the F/O realised I was asleep !

I say again.. every bit as dangerous as alcohol and not nearly getting enough attention...

[sevenstrokeroll]

Mungop: You are quite right, and it is very possible to fall asleep while hand flying an airplane.

To leftseatview: if your hand flying would keep passengers awake, you better turn your autopilot off more often and practice hand flying.

I can imagine the new breed of regional pilot. Pay your money upfront and learn to fly, by 500 or 600 total hours you get hired at a regional airline. And they encourage you to use the autopilot.

So, for every hour you log, maybe 5 minutes is hand flying. And you never get good at it.

Mungop is quite right again, fatigue is not getting enough attention...and it will get some attention with the next fatigue crash.

[manrow]

if your hand flying would keep passengers awake, you better turn your autopilot off more often and practice hand flying

sevenstrokeroll, you must be joking!

A modern autopilot can achieve a smoother ride at altitude than even the most practiced pilot can ever achieve.

One of the biggest myths in aviation today is that we will lose our handling ability if we don't hand fly frequently. I use the autopilot extensively as monitoring its effectiveness is exactly the same as monitoring the other pilot's flying; my performance on check rides has not faltered as a result. Monitoring the autopilot function gives me more time to consider the options and in my experience has not contributed to fatigue a much as flying used to do when I had to hand-fly for hours on end!

[Huck]

One of the biggest myths in aviation today is that we will lose our handling ability if we don't hand fly frequently

Sir, you may be a naturally-talented sky-god, but I assure you that many pilots out there must practice or skills suffer. I see it all the time, and can point to the expensive consequences of such degradation of skills - including a few examples at my own airline. This horse has been beaten to death here before....

[RobertS975]

In the USA, it is not uncommon for pilots to "commute" many hundreds of miles to their pilot base. For example, I know for a fact that there are plenty of DL pilots who still live in the suburbs of Boston even though the BOS pilots base closed years ago.

A fellow I knew well used to leave his suburban Boston home around 1130AM, head for Boston Logan, take the 1230 or 130PM shuttle to LGA, taxi to JFK in time to captain the JFK-SVO flight leaving approximately 5 PM. After 9+ hours at the controls, there's the landing at SVO at what is about 2AM body time.

Mitigating factors were that there was an extra relief pilot on board, allowing the chance to catch some sleep, and the fact that he had to do this trip only 5 times a month or so.

My point is that at least in the US, many pilots are traveling many hours simply to get to their cockpit!

[Dan D'air]

Coincidentally, Air Crash Investigation on the National Geographic channel today was about China Air 006, when a fatigue induced error almost caused the loss of the aircraft. The 747 FE missed a check item and it all went horribly wrong............

Think it's on again later tonight. IMHO it's well worth a look.

[sevenstrokeroll]

manrow

I really have to agree with Huck on this one. If you don't practice, you won't be very good.

You indicate the superiority of the autopilot at altitude. I really wonder how well you would do at max op alt, with the autopilot off or out of service.

Maybe you would descend. Maybe you would be all over the sky. Or maybe you might hand fly to altitude, trim, set power/thrust and let go for a few seconds before engaging "george".

But as Huck said, the horse has been beaten to death before.

[411A]

Three FD crew should be the norm...

First Officer looks after navigation, makes required ratio calls, keeps the plog.
Flight Engineer sees to it that said First Officer stays awake to do the necessary.

Captain rests (snoozes).

F/O gets tired, Captain takes over and the F/O rests (snoozes).

F/E gets tired, Captain keeps an eye on the FE panel, and F/E rests (snoozes).

When all three are tired, the aeroplane is landed, which oddly enough, is normally at the scheduled destination.

When all three are fully awake, newspapers are read and Havana's are enjoyed.

Piece of cake.

[max_cont]

Except the tiny flaw with the suggestion that you turn off the A/P and hand fly, is that within RVSM airspace an A/P is required.