I Hate Duty Time Regs

[Ghetto Sled]

I'm new to 135 and have a duty time question concerning:

a.) 135 flight time limitations for single pilot UNSCHEDULED operations
b.) and the 24 hour 'look back'

So far, I understand:
1. 10 hr rest period is required prior to accepting an assignment
2. Empty legs to pick up a pax DOES count towards the 8 hr limitation,
even if the flight is operated under part 91.
3. The return trip home (empty) is at my discretion and under part 91 and
does not count towards the 8 hrs.

So, here's my question; when 'looking back' prior to accepting a flight does a pilot include the empty 91 leg home into his next 8hr period? As I wrote in the above, I know that it doesn't count during the current day on the tail end, but does it count on the next front end. I'll try to clarify my question with an example.

EXAMPLE
A pilot comes back from a weeks vacation and recieves a trip.
DAY ONE:
1600L--Departs base empty to pick up pax
1700L--Arrives to pick up pax
(+1 hr 135 Flying)
1900L--Departs with pax
2100L--Arrives with pax
(+2 hrs 135)
(3 hrs Total 135 Flying)
2200L--Departs Empty back to base
2400L--Arrives at base
(3 hrs 135 & 5 hrs TOTAL FLYING)
Clocks out and has min of 10 hrs of rest.

The next day the phone rings and the pilot is asked to report to work at 1900L and the trip will depart at 2000L.

The rest requirement has been satisfied. Looking back over the 24 hr period, beginning at the planned time of takeoff (2000L) the pilot has flown a total of 1 hr 135 (20-21L) + the 2 hrs home for a TOTAL of 3 hrs.

1. Is the pilot required to include that empty trip home in his look back?
2. Does he have 7 hours available to him or 5?
3. What ever the max might be (5 or 7), let's say the pilot gets to the
destination timed out; can he then fly home 91?

Thanks to any that can help!

 

[avbug]

To properly answer your question, we need to know a little more about your operation, and the regulations under which you are operating. You indicated that you are part of an unscheduled operation, which may mean that you are part of an on-demand operation. The regulation is occasionally confused however because different rules apply for scheduled operations vs. unscheduled operations, and pilots who have a set schedule.

The regulation makes a subtle differentiation between pilots who have a set schedule and those who don’t, by applying the way flight time is counted. This is found in 135.267. The FAA determined that in order to take advantage of the regulations applying to pilots operating under a set schedule, or a “regularly assigned duty period,” pilots must be working a schedule that not only has them on duty and off duty at the same time every day, but schedules rest at the same time every day. This is a rigid schedule and allows for very little variance. If a pilot is going on duty at varying times, and resting at varying times throughout the day, the pilot is not on a regularly assigned schedule or duty period.

A pilot who is not on a regularly assigned duty is subject to the rolling 24 hour rule. This means that at three in the afternoon, the pilot must look back over the past 24 hours to three yesterday afternoon, to consider his flight and rest limitations. Under the rolling 24 hour rule, there is no duty limitation…just a rest limitation. The regulation does not spell out 14 hours of duty as a limitation, only that within the preceding 24 hours, one must be able to find ten consecutive hours of rest. By default, that means no more than 14 hours of the previous 24 can be duty.

At three in the afternoon, you must be able to look back to three yesterday. When four in the afternoon rolls around, you must be able to look back to four o’ clock yesterday, and so on. At any point in your day, you must be able to look back 24 hours and find two things; no more than 8 hours of flying for a single pilot crew (10 hours for two pilots), and ten consecutive hours of rest.

A crew operating with a regularly assigned duty schedule (often erroneously referred to as a scheduled crew) goes on duty, or is available for duty) at the same time every day, and goes off duty at the same time every day. Rest starts at the same time every day. In this case, the crew can exceed their eight or ten hours of flying in the previous 24, but cannot exceed the 8 or 10 hours during a calendar day. If you have a regular duty schedule that starts at ten in the morning and goes to midnight, you can fly from two o’ clock in the afternoon until midnight for a grand total of ten hours, then get up and start flying at ten until two o’ clock that afternoon again. When two o’ clock rolls around, you’ve just flown 14 hours in the past 24, legally…because you have the advantage of operating under regulations only available to you if you have a regular duty assignment.

Under this same scenario if you don’t have a regularly assigned duty period, if you started flying at two in the afternoon, flew until midnight when you went off duty, then got ten hours rest, you could go back on duty at 1000 the following morning, but couldn’t start flying again until after two in the afternoon. Having a regularly assigned duty period does provide some operational advantages, but it also restricts an operator from a lot of flexibility, which is the reason that few operators go this route. It also often requires that the operator employ more pilots, an economic burden that discourages operators as well.

EXAMPLEA pilot comes back from a weeks vacation and recieves a trip.

DAY ONE:
1600L--Departs base empty to pick up pax
1700L--Arrives to pick up pax
(+1 hr 135 Flying)
1900L--Departs with pax
2100L--Arrives with pax
(+2 hrs 135)
(3 hrs Total 135 Flying)
2200L--Departs Empty back to base
2400L--Arrives at base
(3 hrs 135 & 5 hrs TOTAL FLYING)
Clocks out and has min of 10 hrs of rest.

The next day the phone rings and the pilot is asked to report to work at 1900L and the trip will depart at 2000L.

The rest requirement has been satisfied. Looking back over the 24 hr period, beginning at the planned time of takeoff (2000L) the pilot has flown a total of 1 hr 135 (20-21L) + the 2 hrs home for a TOTAL of 3 hrs.

1. Is the pilot required to include that empty trip home in his look back?
2. Does he have 7 hours available to him or 5?
3. What ever the max might be (5 or 7), let's say the pilot gets to the
destination timed out; can he then fly home 91?

Question 1: Is the pilot required to include that empty trip home in his look back?

If the pilot has no regularly assigned duty period, then yes the pilot is subject to the 24 hour lookback, and must include the 2 hours of ferry time in the total limitation for commercial flying. If instead, the pilot has a regularly assigned duty period, then the ferry flight has taken place prior to midnight, and does not count against the daily commercial flight limitations.

Question 2: Does he have 7 hours available to him or 5?

If you are referring to flight time available for a single pilot operation, if the pilot is operating without a regularly assigned duty period, the pilot has at this point five hours remaining as three have been used of his total eight. However, using the 24 hour rolling clock, your allowable daily commercial flight allowance (8 hours for single pilot) resets at midnight. In this case, the pilot's allowable flight time is still eight hours.

Question 3: What ever the max might be (5 or 7), let's say the pilot gets to the destination timed out; can he then fly home 91?

When duty ends, so do obligations for flight time limitations applicable to a certificate holder. If the pilot ends his duty and has timed out, so long as he does not compromise safety, he may proceed home. This is not duty time, though the pilot’s rest time can’t end until he gets home. Caution must be used here, as the pilot isn’t the one who gets to determine legally if safety has been compromised. If the flight comes to the attention of an inspector who believes that the pilot has not had adequate rest or that the pilot has acted in a careless or reckless manner in conducting the flight, then enforcement action may proceed. The pilot must determine if he feels it’s safe, but that decision on a legal basis is very much open to re-interpretation after the fact…always something to keep in mind.

Now, having said that, we’re making the assumption that you mean the pilot has reached his destination, and has dropped passengers and ended duty. If the pilot still has business on this flight, if he has passengers or is transporting cargo assigned by the company, or anything else that might be construed as duty, he is in violation. The company cannot assign this trip home; it must be strictly at the pilot’s discretion.

Hopefully that helps.

 

[b350capt]

AVbug, you always seem to have the best answers....so im going to querry you. In reference to unscheduled 135, there is no limit to the ammount of standby duty time, nor does standby duty time constitute the need for rest. but it cannot be considered rest. Example. Flight assignment as follows

Duty on 0500 local
Duty off (arrived from planned trip) 0800
Pop up trip duty back on 1800 (10 hours from 0800)
Duty off from pop up 2200 local
Total flight time 6.0 hours (no issue)

The crew was required to answer the phone during the 'rest' period, which was spent at home from 0800-1800. Therefore it should be considered standby, and because they were required to answer the phone during the 'rest' period, NOT in rest and therefore in violation of the lookback rule for 10 hours preceeding the 2nd assignment. I have heard/read that several places claming to be derived from case law and interpretations but never seen any hard facts. ANY help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

 

[avbug]

My reply may be broken up slightly and by the need to post in segments, as my computer cuts out frequently. I have to paste over large segments a little at a time (as I don't carry all this information in my head). You can get this same information from the ASA Pro Flight Library by Summit Publications. It's the same disc the FAA uses, and it's got everything you could possibly need on one disc. I mention this because a few blockheaded posters here and on other sites scream bloody murder any time I cut and paste, and seem to feel that I really should have this information memorized...

The FAA has consistantly determined that rest time must be determined prospectively...that is, looking forward. This means that an employer may not merely have no business for ten hours, and then call it rest...after the plot has been sitting breathlessly by the phone for those ten hours. We all know this is common, if not standard in the 135 world...how many times have you learned that your day off was "yesterday" because you didn't fly?

According to the FAA, rest cannot be determined "retrospectively" (you didn't fly in the last ten hours, even though we could have asked you to fly, therefore you were resting). Employers get away with it all the time...but it's not legal. In the event an accident or incident occurs, guess who gets collared? The employer didn't assign you to duty during that time, so when you tell the FAA that the employer kept you on a leash, how do you prove it? Espcially when the employer tells the FAA that as far as the employer was concerned, you were off duty? Very tough sell, and the employer has just hung you out to dry.

I had an incident this year that involved a full investigative team. It was non-135, and the team was a group of federal investigators who weren't FAA, nor NTSB. However, they were very versed in handling aircraft accidents. One of the first things I was asked was what time I went to bed the night before, how much rest I had, and the quality. They wanted to know how I slept.

The FAA has determined that a single phone call does not interrupt a rest cycle. A rest period must be free from all responsibility for duty.

The following excerpt from a legal interpretation refers to a regulation reference which has changed numerically (codification), but not in principle. In excerpt, Donalde Byrne, FAA Assistant Chief Legal Counsel, in a legal interpretation dated April 9, 1993:

You also ask a question regarding rest periods. You state:

My company believes they can have a crew member in rest (getting legal) and at the same time have the crew member on a beeper in case a trip comes up within their remaining duty time. I believe this is in direct conflict with 135.263(b).

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has consistently interpreted "rest" requirements to be satisfied only if the rest time is determined prospectively, is continuous, is free from all duty and restraint, and is free from the responsibility for work should the occasion arise. A period when a pilot has a present responsibility for work, if called, does not qualify as a rest period. This should be contrasted with a pilot who does not have a present responsibility to fly, if called. For example, when called, he is merely notified of a flight assignment that is to take place at the conclusion of his rest period.

Employers love to say that standby or reserve isn't duty, but isn't rest. This is garbage. Of course it's duty. If you're not resting, you're on duty, with respect to the regulations. If you are given ten hours of rest and told to be on standby at 0900, you're in violation of rest regulations if you attempt to accept duty beyond 2300 that night. If you accept duty with a call-out at 2100, you have two hours remaining until you're bumping up against the ability to look back and find ten consecutive hours of rest in the preceeding 24 hours.

On reserve, you may not actually be on duty, but you're certainly not resting, and as it can't count toward rest time, it's coming off your duty time...you've got to be able to look back and find ten hours of rest accounted for, which have been determined not in retrospect. An employer cannot keep you on reserve for ten hours and then call you out, and name those ten hours of "reserve" or "standby" as rest. Semantically, the employer may be right...it isn't duty...but so what? It counts against your ability to go to work every bit as much as if you were on duty, because you MUST be able to look back and find that 10 hour block of scheduled rest in your 24 hour history.

In a March 26, 1992 letter, Mr. Byrne stated:

The FAA has consistently defined "duty" to mean actual work for an air carrier or present responsibility to work should the occasion arise. Duty includes all preflight and postflight activities.

"Rest" is a period free from all duty and free from all present responsibility for work or duty. Rest is determined prospectively.

A standby or reserve pilot has a present responsibility to work if called; therefore he is on duty because he is not free from restraint. Standby duty tolls the rest period because a rest period must be free from restraint.

Continued...

 

[avbug]

Continuing...

In a letter to the Teamsters the year previous to the above statement, Mr. Byrne stated the following:

October 3, 1991
Mr. Gary Haskins
Vice President, Business Representative
Teamsters Miscellaneous and Industrial Workers Union
555 East Rich Street
Columbus, Ohio 43215-5396

Dear Mr. Haskins:

This is in response to your letter of July 11, 1991, to the Office of the Chief Counsel, Federal Aviation Administration, requesting an interpretation of Sec. 135.263(b) and Sec. 135.263(d) of the Federal Aviation Regulations.
Regarding your request for interpretation of Sec. 135.263(d), we believe you meant Sec. 135.267(d) and we will respond accordingly.

Please be advised that we issue legal interpretations based on actual or realistic hypothetical fact situations. In the absence of specific factual situations, we will attempt to be of as much help to you as possible by providing you general information. We believe the best way to answer your request is to give you a general discussion of some of the pertinent regulatory provisions. If you desire a legal interpretation applicable to specific facts, we will need those facts and the name of the air carrier certificate holder.

Your first question is does the FAA consider reserve duty, standby duty, carrying a pager or other telephonic device, to be duty under Sec. 135.263(b). Your first question continues, "In other words, if the flight crewmember is required to hold himself available for immediate flight assignment, either by telephoning the certificate holder on a regular basis or by staying at a place so the certificate holder may make contact with him, is the flight crewmember in required rest or on duty under Sec. 135.263(b)? Is the required rest under Sec. 135.263(b) supposed to be free from any restraint to qualify as required rest?"

The FAA has consistently interpreted its "rest" requirements to be satisfied only if the rest time is determined prospectively, is continuous, is free from all duty and restraint, and is free from the responsibility for work should the occasion arise. A period of time during which a pilot has a present responsibility for work, if called, does not qualify as a rest period. This should be contrasted with a pilot who does not have a present responsibility to fly, if he is called. For example, when called, he is merely notified of a flight assignment to take place at the conclusion of his rest period.

Your second question asks whether a certificate holder may make one phone call or pager call to a flight crewmember during that flight crewmember's rest period. As an example, you mention a telephone call which wakes up the flight crewmember from his sleep, causing him to rise, turn on the lights, and get a pen and paper, and of such length that a flight assignment briefing could be dictated and copied.

Rest period regulations, as consistently interpreted by the Agency, are not violated by one telephone call or pager call from the certificate holder to the flight crewmember. We have not encountered situations in which the length of the telephone call became an issue. Therefore, none of our interpretations has addressed that issue. If you have in mind a specific telephone call, please give us all the facts. Please include the time of the call, its length, the purpose, why it was made in the rest period, the name of the certificate holder, and any other details available such as what is meant by "flight assignment briefing".

You postulated a situation in which a flight crewmember is so fatigued he is not physically or mentally capable of flying. We would like to point out that a flight crewmember may not depart on a flight if the flight crewmember's lack of rest would endanger the life or property of others. Sec. 91.13(a) provides as follows: "No person may operate an aircraft in a careless or reckless manner, so as to endanger the life or property of another." Both the flight crewmember and certificate holder would be in violation of section Sec. 91.13(a) if a flight crewmember flys when his lack of rest would endanger others. Furthermore, the flight crewmember need not actually endanger others for a violation of Sec. 91.13(a) to occur - a violation exists if the flight crewmember's fatigue subjects life or property to potential endangerment. If a flight crewmember is so fatigued that he believes he is incapable of safely operating an aircraft, he should immediately inform his employer.
We hope the general guidance provided in this letter will prove helpful to you and your union.

Sincerely,

Donald P. Byrne
Assistant Chief Counsel
Regulations and Enforcement Division

This letter is often quoted by employers as authorization giving them carte blanche immunity in breaching a sleep period with a phone call, and is sometimes called the "one phone call rule." The interpretation actually says nothing of the kind. The interpretation merely states that in reviewing various situations, the legal office hadn't found the call to be a legal interruption of the rest period. The counsel wisely skirted the issue of safety, as a phone call may still compromise safety if the crew doesn't get proper or adequate rest. A call that interrupts sleep such that a crewmember can't get back to sleep is a good example. 14 CFR 91.13 still applies; careless and reckless operation...and this will get applied to the pilot, not the operator, as it's the pilot who ultimately makes the decision w(h)eather he or she is up to taking the flight.


Continued...

 

[avbug]

Continuing...

Finally, another interpretation that spells out the question clearly, without giving a firm answer (and at the same time leaving no wiggle room for deviation):

June 24, 1991
Mr. Fredrick G. Pappas, Jr.
Director, Flight Services
Midwest Corporate Aviation
PO Box 8067
Wichita, KS 67208

Dear Mr. Pappas:

Thank you for your letter of April 12, 1989, requesting an interpretation of the appropriate crew rest requirements for your fixed wing air ambulance operations. We apologize for the lengthy delay in answering your letter and thank you for your patience.

In your letter, you give us the following background concerning your current procedure:

Fixed wing air ambulance crews are scheduled for 24 hour standby. During this period, they are required to wear a pager and must be able to respond to the airport and the aircraft within 30 minutes. However, they are not confined to any location and are free to stay at home or participate in any activity within a 30 minute radius of the airport.

Crew duty time starts when they are paged and continues for 14 hours. (Flight time is normally 2 - 5 hours.) At that time, the crew is "down" for 10 hours of crew rest. When the crew rest period is satisfied, the crew is back on 24 hour standby.

You ask three questions based on the above procedure. Each of your questions is set forth in turn below and is followed by our answer.

Question 1: Does this procedure satisfy the crew rest requirements of FAR Part 135?

As you know, section 135.267(d) requires that each assignment provide for at least 10 consecutive hours of rest during the 24 hour period that precedes the planned completion time of the assignment. We cannot tell from the information in your letter when the flight time is planned to be completed, and we are therefore unable to determine whether this procedure satisfies the rest requirements of Part 135.

In order to give you a definitive interpretation, we need the precise facts of specific situations and the meaning which you attribute to terms such as standby, "down" time, etc. These terms are not self-defining nor, as far as we are aware, do they have any commonly accepted meaning in the air transportation industry. To the contrary, it has been our experience that the meaning and consequences of these terms vary among the various air carriers.

Subject to such precise facts as we may encounter upon examination of further information from you, we have set forth below the following general principles concerning the rest requirements in an attempt to be of as much help as possible.

The rest requirements in Part 135 are triggered by duty aloft in air transportation. If one starts with the assumption that a rest period is required, then certain requirements must be met in order for the time to qualify as a rest period.

First, a rest period must be prospective in nature. Stated another way, a flight crewmember must be told in advance that he or she will be on a rest period for the duration required by the regulations. In addition, a rest period must be free of all restraint. However, the Agency's interpretations hold that receipt of one telephone call or beeper call does not constitute a violation of a rest period provision. Moreover, a flight crewmember in a rest period must be free of present responsibility for work should the occasion arise.

Question 2: Does a pager check during the 24 hour standby period interrupt crew rest? (E.g., does a pager check start the "crew-duty clock"?)

As discussed above, standby does not constitute crew rest. The pager check does not interrupt crew rest because crew rest is not taking place.
In contrast, if a flight crewmember is not on standby but is genuinely on crew rest and receives a telephone or pager call from the certificate holder, the Agency does not consider the rest period to have been interrupted.

Question 3: Is the entire 24 hour period "crew duty time" even though the crews are scheduled for no activity unless they are paged?

No, not in the sense that it produces the need for the rest periods required by the FAR. As discussed under Question 1 above, rest periods are normally triggered in the FAR only by duty aloft in air transportation. However, where a crewmember's flight time has triggered a particular rest requirement in the FAR, time spent in standby status will not satisfy such rest requirement.
Although our answers herein are general in nature, we hope we have been able to be of some assistance to you. We will be glad to consider more specific information which you may wish to submit.

Sincerely,

Donald P. Byrne
Assistant Chief Counsel
Regulations and Enforcement Division

 

[b350capt]

Thanks!! Just what i needed.

 

[FlyingMoose]

Again, as usual, Avbug is exactly right. It is amazing how hard it is to get people to understand these regs.... actually I should write "follow" these regs, because it usually is a simple matter of employers not following the rules and knowing it to keep from employing an adequate or proper number of crewmembers.

Of course we know it is a highly competive industry and occasionally you'll get a Chief Pilot, DO, CEO, etc. to be honest enough to go as far as saying the company has to operate this way, even though they know it is not exactly legal, to be competitive. BS! They always seem to retain their salary increases, promotions, bonuses, perks, "company cars" for the spouses, etc. while having to make the "unfortunate and difficult decisions" to furlough or cut pilot salaries to keep the company profitable. Blah, blah, blah.

All that being said, b350capt, all these supporting documents and items aren't going to do anything to help you. They've been out there for a long time and this arguement has been had for many years. Some operators, particularly in 135 unscheduled, are going to break these rules and there are POI's out there that let them. It is up to you to either get in a position to force the change where you work or find a better place. But, that's just my opinion!

 

[Way2Broke]

I'm new to 135 and have a duty time question concerning:

Welcome to the hell that is the life of a 135/121 pilot. Pray for reform!