The NTSB wasn't as sympathetic as that. See attached.

Aterpster and all,

One of the big selling points by the FAA for ADS-B was to be able to get rid of the "expensive radars".

Not going to happen.....

Also, I believe that a backup source of navigation will ultimately be needed to provide a secure system. Enhanced Loran C comes to mind.

Imaging the consequences of a worldwide hack/shutdown of GPS......

Oh but it did happen. The DoD is paying for the 'expensive radars' which are now not on the FAA books.

What evidence of fatigue do you have for the SFO incident. Are you aware of their schedule or sleep patterns? I think not. I suspect that you are just making an assumption based on the time that the incident happened. But perhaps the pilots were well rested prior to the flight.

There seems to be an automatic assumption by some that if any incident happens at certain times or on a long flight, that fatigue is a factor, perhaps in an attempt to deflect attention away from the possibility of crew error.

As of right now, most of us have no idea on whether the crew were fatigued so we should not be posting in a manner as if it was likely. The reality is that it is a possibility along with many other possibilities and that's all.

The other reality is that there are flights all over the world that are long haul and at strange hours. Yet they are completed without incident. Misidentification of airports and runways happen on a regular basis to fatigued and non-fatigued crews.

As we can see in the UPS cause that was posted, the captain had some deficiencies that were seen in training and resulted in the accident. I'm sure they were tired, but so were probably 25% or more of UPS pilots in the system that night and every night.

That presentation could be given today, given what was shown and what has been done. Sorry to say that was done in 2007, so in 10 years, nothing has happened.

ADSB signal consists of 112 bits, that is it, you barely get the root and the ac id in that, with coordinates, so forget about any encription, just not enough room. Even the other information is pretty granular.

ADSB may have use for ground movement, but in reality, you will never ever see ADSB-In on a commercial aircraft. Military has it, but it is built behind a very secure encryption system which is not available commercially.

Jammedstab, I think a distinction needs to be made here between fatigue and circadian rhythms. When I mentioned the "C word", I intentionally did not accuse the crew of being fatigued or even tired. They may have been, but we have no info on that.
What we do know is that it was nearly midnight local time, and the flight was originating from a place where it was then 3 AM. Contrary to your suggestion, we can guess a few things about our crew. For example, they were not based in San Francisco. Also, it was probably between 3:30 AM and midnight on their base time.

And here's the thing about Circadian lows: they're not based on fatigue, but rather what time of day your body thinks it is. Industrial accidents have their highest rates between 2-4 AM and 1-3 PM, and that's with people who are well rested, sober, and in the time zone.

Sure, most crews pull it off just fine. Most times, you'll get by without the last five minutes of final reserve fuel too.

Part of it is self-discipline, experience, and proficiency. I am speaking of this crew, rather the fatal UPS crew.

I flew many lousy night pairings with TWA before the duty/rest rules got a bit better.

As tired as we may have been on a multi-leg flight from LAX to the east coast on the back side of the clock, we managed to get ourselves alert for the terminal area business at hand, whether it be CAVU or bare minimums.

Don't really know. Perhaps the lack of automation forced us to be more alert. The human-factors folks probably don't have a real good handle on it.

Also, commuting from a distant location to begin a night flight should be illegal.

Having had the domicile I lived in closed causing me to commute, I'll be happy to agree with you when the company purchases my house and provides moving expenses to a domocile within my time zone. While I'm senior enough to bid around the trips you mention, not everyone is.

I have no problem with commuting provided it is subject to FAR duty time and rest regulations.

I was forced to commute from LAX to STL for several months. I always went over the day before and spent a night in a hotel before taking my pairing the next day.

That's not the way it works for most commuters. They ride the red-eye then report for their pairing a few hours after arrival, at most. Domiciles open and close. Same happens in other industries. That's a personal/employee/employer problem that should not be transferred to the flight deck.

Also, these days many commute because they chose not to move to the domicile in the first place.

There was a time living within "reasonable ground travel" of the domicile was mandatory. Why I never applied to NWA.

TWA never had that. But, before the early 1970s the jump seat couldn't be used for commuting. So, only the senior guys with term passes could commute.

Circa 1970 the LAX chief pilot issued a letter that all LAX pilots had to live within 50 miles of KLAX, The union got that rescinded in short order. We had guys driving up to 200 miles in those days.

That is the problem, you are just guessing. How do you know that they were not Vancouver based? You don't do you.

And even if they were based in the east, how do you know that they were not well rested prior to departure? You are making an assumption(and y are making the suggestion) that this crew had to be tired. I suggest that you are just making guesses as potential excuses.

I don't know how prevalent long distance pilot commuting is currently, but only a decade or so ago, I knew a DL pilot who would leave his home in southeastern MA (BOS pilot base had closed) about 0930 to catch an 1130 DL shuttle flight BOS-LGA, taxi from LGA to JFK to command the DL flight JFK-SVO leaving between 1600-1630. This would happen 4-5 times a month.

His landings at SVO came at 0200 or so "body clock time" after a pretty long day. There was a rest period during the TATL flight.

We're still conflating fatigue with circadian rhythm. It doesn't matter if the crew was well rested. If the pilots were flying "out of sync" with their biological cycle, then their cognitive performance might be compromised.

There's a lot of research indicating that most of us cannot perform optimally past 2am unless we only work nights for an extended period of time -- e.g., doing night shifts exclusively for several weeks in a row without break.

Yet as soon as we switch to day work (even for just one day) our body clock "resets", and our night time alertness suffers again -- regardless of how "well rested" we might be.

Speaking of ADSB, been hearing rumors that the 2020 mandate in the US is not going to happen, anopther delay will be announced soon (associated with the ATC privitization bill)

Well put, peekay4. Anecdotally, a good many years ago I had a summer job assignment that led to an entire calendar month of midnight-to-8:00 a.m. shifts. Not flying anything - compiling production numbers and various numerical production reports for a BOF (Basic Oxygen Furnaces) steel-making shop. Around sun-up or so each shift, I had to drive around the massive steel mill works, in my personal car, to deliver some reports to other departments. Indeed the body clock does adjust to "steady midnights" (and some mill folk take pride in their ability, or perhaps it's only perceived ability, to adjust as necessary).But even so, driving around the sprawling Plant 2 of Indiana Harbor Works, alert for gargantuan fork-lifts carrying ingot molds for example, as the August sun was rising over Lake Michigan taxed even a 21-year-old's ability to ..... look sharp!

I'd say that most commuters I know haven't ever hopped an all nighter, let alone sign in for a paring after, certainly not "most" as you characterize. Perhaps in the past, not these days.
Either way, unless there's a demonstrated, continious problem, I'd prefer to avoid additional government overreach.

Colgan Air 3407 was just over 8 years ago.

It's next to impossible to gather information as to whether it is "a demonstrated, continuous problem." The commute issue of 3407's F/O was of considerable concern to the NTSB.

Given the considerable changes due to the Colgan crash along with the implementation of FAR 117, there's been ample opportunity to address it if it was deemed thst dangerous. As tragic as Colgan was, it was one accident and there are a lot of other pieces to that puzzle besides commuting.

Still lots of NH MA folks flying out of JFK and almost all are augmented. I would just make sure I had the last rest period before making a landing.