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Almost all Regional Pilots are Seriously Fatigued.....article

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I am stupid to wade into this but.............

I remember as an F/O we were four minutes short of mandatory comp rest due to weather diversions... Captain called fatigued. Scheduling argued with her to the end of the Earth so I called. I managed to get threatened with discipline etc. for calling in tired. Got about 30 mins extra rest out of them (which wasn't enough). Told them to pull the tape and give it to the director of screw scheduling... He called and said he listened to the tape...

"When you said the word 'fatigue' that should have been the end of it. Still, I don't know what the big deal is. It was an empty repo leg."

It was a live leg with 40+ in back and we were flat out dangerous. Stupid mistakes we would never have made with rest got us left and right. Thank goodness we kept catching each other or it mighta' been bad.

I guess if we had drilled the airplane into the ground with just the crew nobody would have cared.

Needless to say I will never do something like that again.

Crew rest is the elephant in the room that nobody wants to talk about, ESPECIALLY at the Regionals.
 
I've flown long-haul international for many years now, and I can say without a doubt the biggest fatigue problems I've ever had in my career were at a regional -- on reserve.

Red-eyes are a close second.


I thought Atlantic Coast was the best Regional?
 
The new EU-Ops rules that went into effect in '08 are the standard the FAA needs to go by. I'm all for good ol' American productivity, but we're gambling with lives.
 
Thank You

The new EU-Ops rules that went into effect in '08 are the standard the FAA needs to go by. I'm all for good ol' American productivity, but we're gambling with lives.
Thank you a reasonable response. I agree, it would be good place to start, I am not against addressing the fatigue issue. But there are no rules that will prevent all fatigue, look at the Colgan F/O she would have been rested by any standard, it is what she did during her rest time that caused the fatigue. However like I said above there will unintended consequences due to the need for more crews to do the same flying.
 
However like I said above there will unintended consequences due to the need for more crews to do the same flying.

who cares. last time I heard pulling the ladder underneath from you is the name of this game. major airline pilots have done it before me and so will I. if a few CFIs have to instruct a little longer for us to be treated like human beings by the company then so be it. Just about everything they do is good for the senior guy and bad for the rest us. That's the whole point of a seniority system. If you think it isn't fair then go to some place that doesn't have a seniority system and get your knee pads ready.
 
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who cares. last time I heard pulling the ladder underneath from you is the name of this game. major airline pilots have done it before me and so will I. if a few CFIs have to instruct a little longer for us to be treated like human beings by the company then so be it. Just about everything they do is good for the senior guy and bad for the rest us. That's the whole point of a seniority system. If you think it isn't fair then go to some place that doesn't have a seniority system and get your knee pads ready.
Sounds like you and I agree, with any change things will most likely will not be better for everyone. So a lot of those cheer leaders leading the charge for change may go "Oh! I didn't think this would happen". Like Zantop, "Once we get a union we will treated as professional pilots" Right on, furloughed when they pretended to go out of business. Watch out what you ask for, you might get it in a way you did not anticipate, I could go on, with things like scope, but we all know that stuff.
 
If we can have a reasonable discussion, then bring in all sides without insults, name calling and all the other FI stuff. Is the end of fatigue a goal? I agree then lets bring it on, but I ask what is the limit of ultimate crew rest? Is it everyone only works when they feel rested; they can call fatigue at any time during a trip, and refuse any assignment because they are not rested? How about a stopping a non-stop JFK-LAX at OMA, because they feel fatigued from that exhausting 10 hour jumpseat commute to pick that trip at JFK. How about no flying between 2200 and 0800, make it against the law? How about those 16 hour int'l flights? Will there now be stops and crew changes at BIRK? Followed by a RO2N to be fully rested for that last leg into Europe. There is no rest policy that will keep a crew fresh for all flights. Forced company rest at the crew base in bunk 25B will make it legal but not solve the problem. Whatever solution is offered it will be less flying and more time away from home in a hotel room. I have no dog in this flight, but "unintended consequences" could have devastating effects on the industry.

Yea right, any reasonable person realizes your last sentence "I have no dog in this flight" is on par with the lies of Tiger Woods. You would like to go down in flames in your pathetic karma deserved career for being such a prick to the chance of this career being better in the future. You are the dog, the little purse dog your management team just loves to string along to treat pilots like numbers versus valuables. You would just wither in front of real professionals like Sulley. And wither even more in the face of people deeply affected by trash conditions people like yourself have promoted. I find it impossible to have a logical discussion who has yet to retract or apologize for direct FAR violations in suggesting a PIC should never challenge a MEL among other idiotic suggestions on here.
 
Interesting article in thid months BCA on Fatigue. Says napping in the cockpit is becoming more accepted. Something we have practicing for years in the night cargo business. FAA did study in the late 80's early 90's and recommend controlled sleeping in the cockpit was the best way to combat fatigue. They studied the occurrence of micro naps, these are naps that you have no control over, and you nod off. On crews studied who did not have controlled sleeping in the cockpit there were 147 occurrences of micro nap, a number of them during the approach phase. On the crews at foreign airlines that allowed sleeping in the cockpit, there were no occurrences of micro naps during the approach phase. The FAA recommended that controlled napping in the cockpit be adopted as US policy, however Gov’t officials felt that official recognition of sleeping on the job was un-American. Story of a mirco-nap. When you fly shifting schedules, you have to plan sleeping otherwise it is uncontrollable. Having one guy rest his eyes for 20 minutes, when other one knows it is going on does wonders for your ability to make that tight approach at the end of the night. However when everyone in the cockpit is asleep, that is scary. We used to fly these night and day patrols around Vietnam, terrible schedule, 12 hr flights, fly a day flight 12 hours off fly a night flight, 24 hrs off fly a day flight. 10 days in a row. One night off the south end of the country, at 0300, nothing is going on, no contacts, no chatter on the intercom, I am fighting off sleep and loosing, a mirco-nap hits and I nod off. I wake up, you do not know if it has been 30 seconds or 30 minutes, we are on the autopilot' at 1,500’, #1 engine in the bag to save fuel, and all 10 of the crew is asleep. Talk about being wide-awake, Where the are we? Now how do you wake up the PPC without letting him know you nodded off also? The F/E was also in the bag. So I called for "Coffee around for my friends" The point is the worse thing about sleeping in the cockpit is letting it sneak up on you, You know it might happen, plan on when it is going to happen, control it.
 
I believe the EU rules are a great start. On the same token, having commuted much of my career, I was more tired from commuting than from the schedules. ALPO never wants to talk about that.
I'll never commute again.
 

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