Pilot fatigue

Pilot fatigue is defined as a physiological state of lack of alertness that affects the physical and mental performance of airplane pilots. Pilot fatigue often gets more attention when it involves pilots of passenger airliners because many more lives are often at risk, but pilots of corporate, private, cargo, and military aircraft are equally susceptible to fatigue. Studies have shown that nearly all pilots have flown when fatigued. While fatigue can affect the performance of any worker, factors such as jet lag, long travel time to work, flying overnight, and the monotony of flying add to the risk of pilots developing fatigue. Many crashes have been attributed, at least in part, to pilot fatigue.

Background

Fatigue is the state of being extremely tired to the point of finding it difficult to stay awake. It can be caused by lack of sleep, long stretches of strenuous physical or mental work, stress, illness, or disruption of the body’s circadian rhythm. A person who is tired and also performing routine or boring tasks may also experience fatigue.

The state of fatigue is more difficult to overcome than the simple tiredness a person who has slept for seven or eight hours the night before might experience close to bedtime. Fatigue results in a reduction in the person’s ability to perform both mental and physical tasks, impairs judgment, affects coordination, increases reaction time, reduces the desire to accomplish tasks, and increases the likelihood that the person will engage in risky behaviors which can lead to microsleeps. According to experts, a person who has been awake for twenty-one hours is as impaired as someone at a blood alcohol level of 0.08, the level at which a person is considered legally drunk in the United States, Canada, and many other areas.

Fatigue is a problem for all workers, but it has been a particular concern for pilots almost since the beginning of human flight. Famed pilot Charles Lindbergh fought to stay awake during his 33.5–hour flight across the Atlantic Ocean in 1927. Many other early pilots who sought to set flight records or to be the first to reach certain flight accomplishments also battled fatigue. The fact that flying is a specialized skill that not everyone can do increases demands on pilots during war, rescue missions, and busy flight seasons, meaning that available pilots often fly for longer hours with less sleep than is ideal.

Overview

Pilots are especially susceptible to fatigue because of some of the requirements of their jobs. Many pilots commute to their jobs, with some of those commutes requiring the pilot to fly from where they live to the city where their home base airport is located. Pilots often also have long layovers between assigned flights; while this time is meant for rest, it is not always possible for the pilot to fall asleep or to sleep well during this time.

The need for pilots to fly overnight routes can sometimes contribute to the pilot’s inability to sleep during rest periods. In addition to requiring pilots to fly while it is dark, overnight flights necessitate pilots to be awake when they would normally be asleep. This can interrupt the body’s normal wake-sleep cycle, or circadian rhythm, and make it difficult for pilots to get the rest they need. Pilots also often have to cope with jet lag, or the interruption to the circadian rhythm that occurs when people move across time zones. Other factors that can contribute to pilot fatigue include flying multiple short flights in one day and the monotonous nature of a flight, especially a route the pilot flies often, as well as reduced engagement associated with highly automated flight operations. In addition, pilots must also deal with factors that keep many people from sleeping, such as family responsibilities and financial stress.

Some of the symptoms of pilot fatigue include yawning and feeling and acting in a slower, more sluggish manner. Pilots may experience episodes of a condition known as microsleep, in which they briefly fall asleep for seconds at a time. The person experiencing microsleep may have their eyes open but may be initially unresponsive when spoken to, and they may suddenly snap into a more alert state without realizing they have been asleep.

The risks posed by pilot fatigue go beyond the danger of falling completely asleep behind the controls of the plane. The fatigued pilot will have slower reaction times and may not immediately understand or respond to alerts and warnings from the plane, other members of the flight crew, or air traffic controllers. The pilot may also have difficulty making decisions or may make quick decisions that involve more risky actions. Any of these can result in a pilot losing control of the plane or flying off course to a point where the plane and its occupants are at risk. Aviation officials have determined that many accidents have been caused at least in part because the pilot was fatigued.

Pilots’ associations and government entities have presented a number of measures to prevent pilot fatigue and any related crashes, including the implementation of Fatigue Risk Management Systems (FRMS). Some of these include longer rest periods between shifts, requirements that a certain portion of the rest period must be spent sleeping, limits on how many hours a pilot can fly between rest periods, adjustments to schedules to minimize the effect of the circadian rhythm, and limits on how many overall hours a pilot can fly during a week, a month, and a year. Rules have also been implemented in some areas to allow a pilot or another airline employee to alert the airline that the pilot is too fatigued to fly safely.

Some experts are concerned that the rules will make little or no difference. In some cases, airlines have already found ways to skirt the laws and continue to have pilots flying in ways that can contribute to fatigue. Experts also note that most people, including pilots, are poor judges of how tired they are. As a result, experts raise concerns that pilots will continue to consider themselves flight-worthy even when they are too fatigued to fly safely.

In 2022, CNN reported on a rise in pilot fatigue following the COVID-19 pandemic. Reports of pilot fatigue among Southwest Airlines pilots increased by 600 percent in October 2021 before climbing another 330 percent in March 2022. Although there were rules in place that limited pilots to thirty hours of flight per week, many airlines were impacted by the pandemic and soon struggled to meet the demand for air travel, which resulted in an increased strain and higher workload placed on airline pilots. (CNN reported that demand for air travel in 2022 had reached 90 percent of what it was in 2019, yet major airlines were staffing 3,000 fewer employees in 2022 when compared to 2019). Into the mid-2020s, pilot shortages, extended duty hours, and insufficient rest periods continued to heighten fatigue risks.

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