Flight crew fatigue (Part 121)

[chperplt]

I'm writing a graduate research paper on 121 flight crew fatigue. Specifically, I'm looking at current regulations and trying to prove they do very little to combat fatigue.

I'm interested to hear what you all think about this problem.

Do you think current regs do enough to prevent fatigue? Are the regs too dispatch friendly during wx days? If you think they are poorly written, how do you suggest the regs be rewritten?

Do you think there should be a different set of regs for aircraft operating without advanced instrumentation? (Autopilot, FD,...)

I know how I feel on leg 9 of a scheduled 7hr 50min block day, already being in the airplane almost 9 hours, shooting that last approach.. How do you all feel?

Thanks for the help!

 

[Old Crow]

The best place you can start is the difference between Part 135 and Part 121.

135 rules mandate a 14 hour duty day with a minimum of 10 hours of rest in between.

121 rules mandate a 16 hour duty day (NEW) with a minimum of 9 hours and that can be reduced to 8 if needed.

It's all about Politics.

 

[chperplt]

Thanks for your reply.

I understand reduced and compensatory rest requirements. I want to get into the 16 hour max duty day, which as written is the 8 hours rest within every 24 hour period requirement. I want to rip apart the "out of the carriers control" clause as well as many other dispatch friendly regs..

This is a research project, so I guess technically I should keep an open mind.

 

[TurboS7]

What a subject....if you could live in my body for just one month you would get your PHD. First, look up the JAR regulations on crew rest and compare them to our FAR's. I find that I am fatiqued half the time, this is a tough business in that respect. Let's take my next trip.

Thursday-leave my house at 0900 for a 1100 show. Get all paperwork together and leave and brief FA's. Leave for terminal at 1130 for a commercial flight to BWI on American. We have a 33 hour layover at BWI, but you must eat right, do some type of physical activity,and get a lot of sleep to prepare to the next ordeal. Show time is at 1700 on Friday for overwater preflight, which includes making a plot chart, double checking everything with dispatch to make sure it is in compliance with all ETOPS procedures.1830 FA brief and crew brief. 1900 leave for the airport. Go through security, preflight, and board passengers. Depart the gate at 2030, Arrive at BIKF at 0230. Two hours of monkey motion then depart the gate at BIKF at 0430 and arrive at BWI at 1030. Arrive at the hotel at 1230 after postflight and customs. Early the next morning commercial home. Sounds easy and looks easy but this trip will blow you away,tough trip.Get home at 1500 on Sunday.

 

[TurboS7]

After that trip it takes 2 days at home before you feel you have the energy to do anything.

 

[TurboS7]

With this flight max duty with 3 pilot crew is 18 hours 12 hours of hard flying. With our 727 which is two crew and additonal crew member (FE) the duty day has no limits max hours 12 in 24.

 

[AWACoff]

Don't forget about the operators that use aircraft with 30 seats or less. They can be 121 but use 135 duty times (aka Lakes). Too bad all but 2 of the autopilots are parked right now (120s).

 

[Andy Neill]

Research Methods

Since this is a research project, have you considered dredging up accident reports and evaluating the state of the crew's rest at the time of the mishap? Gather info on duty/flight time on the day/week of the mishap and look for correlations between extended periods of duty/flight and mishap occurances. Naturally ANOVA with an appropriate level of probability would need to be done to determine significance.

Or you could ask a bunch of folks using pseudonyms on a message board what they think of rest/duty regs.

 

[Jetpup]

As a follow on to Andy's post, I'm not sure how you can search the NTSB database for specific causes, but that would be a good start.

Also, look at CDOs or "stand ups" - fatigue off a standup was the cause of an AE overrun at JFK maybe two years ago?

 

[azpilot]

Here are some links you may find useful:

http://www.alpa.org/internet/projects/ftdt/backgr/

http://www.crm-devel.org/resources/misc/transcan/transcan5.htm

http://www.airlinepilots.com/Fatigue.htm

http://asrs.arc.nasa.gov/report_sets_nf.htm - Lots of self submitted fatigue reports

http://www.msnbc.com/news/367099.asp

http://www.ntsb.gov/Publictn/1997/AAR9702.htm
http://www.ntsb.gov/Events/2000/AA1420/anim_boardmtng.htm

Good luck with your paper.