Sleeping pilot

[NYCPK]

ITA pilots/crew have been under a lot of stress as most of them come from Alitalia and didn't know if they would keep their jobs. Indeed when I see crews walking through JFK T1 concourse to their aircraft, the uniform still says Alitalia - guess budgets are tight. Not justifying anything just adding in some perspective on the stress these folk have been through...

[lightonthewater]

Originally Posted by Goth

There's been a fair bit of discussion of this in the maritime sector - night watches in a warm, comfortable bridge in calm seas have a high risk of a lone watchkeeper falling asleep (or at least losing concentration) - this can be from fatigue, lack of stimulation or both. One of the solutions is to have a watch alarm that must be responded to on a certain timescale - if it isn't responded to it triggers an alarm elsewhere in the ship to alert the rest of the crew. A specific set of cabin intercom tones or an automated message might work for a plane?

Modern ships do indeed have an alarm that sounds if a watch keeper does not respond on a regular basis, but many times accidents have happened because the alarm has 'malfunctioned' : ie someone has not turned it on, or has turned it off, as its just seen as inconvenient and irritating. Stupid, of course, but human nature is like that. Mind you, watch keepers are at sea for days and weeks not hours, so boredom and repetition are greater factors than would be experienced by airline pilots. (though, being a shipbroker, not a pilot, what would I know?)

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