Who's been sleeping on the job?

[Erlanger]

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,307019,00.html

 

[skyward80]

Sounds like the two pilots in the report should have taken turns napping before starting down. Also, pilots on the road need a little more time on the ground to rest. I get a minimum of 17 hours on the ground wherever I go for Uncle Sam, and that's barely enough to get some sleep (esp with time zone changes).

Sleep well,
Skyward80

 

[AWACoff]

This isn't news. This is reality. Truck drivers in the USA are required to have more rest than airline pilots. We need more rest.

 

[skyaddict]

One of the many areas that I still think if farcical is that rest is not firmly defined as time in hotel for layovers. Transportation time and time waiting for vans, whether the van trip is 5 minutes or 60, should never be definable as rest time, period, IMHO. These things should be covered in the FARs and not left to the vagaries of contracts.

 

[Rez O. Lewshun]

. We need more rest.

More rest = change in FARs = act of congress = lobbying = money = ALPA-PAC = getting involved...

OR

More Rest = change in CBA = support for Negotiating Committee = getting involoved...

 

[BeCareful!]

A commercial pilot had recently switched schedules to flying three "red eyes" in a row between Denver and Baltimore with only one hour in between flights.


Wow. Hmmm. Really?



the report continues, saying that the plane was supposed to be traveling at less than 290 mph, but they were moving at a clip of about 590 mph.


Wow. Converting to kts, are they saying that it was below 10,000, supposed to be going 250kts, and that they were well over 500kts?

I don't think so......

 

[Beechnut]

I believe those are speed restrictions on the STARs into Denver.

 

[D-Bo]

A commercial pilot had recently switched schedules to flying three "red eyes" in a row between Denver and Baltimore with only one hour in between flights.


Wow. Hmmm. Really?



the report continues, saying that the plane was supposed to be traveling at less than 290 mph, but they were moving at a clip of about 590 mph.


Wow. Converting to kts, are they saying that it was below 10,000, supposed to be going 250kts, and that they were well over 500kts?

I don't think so......

Yup. This was Frontier and they used to fly F'n red eye TURNS to the easy coast. It's a miracle it only happened once. They discontinued the red eye turns not long after this. It's impossible not to be fatigued on one of those. What happened to them could happen to anybody on a red eye turn.

 

[AdlerDriver]

Yup. This was Frontier and they used to fly F'n red eye TURNS to the easy coast. It's a miracle it only happened once. They discontinued the red eye turns not long after this. It's impossible not to be fatigued on one of those. What happened to them could happen to anybody on a red eye turn.

I guess I always thought a "red-eye" was a late night (local time) departure from the western U.S. that arrived at the destination (usually ORD/DFW and further east) at 0500-0600-ish.

What is a "red-eye" turn and how does someone fly 3 red-eyes with an hour between each flight?

 

[Ex737Driver]

We have two that I know of out of EWR. The first is PSE (Ponce, PR) which leaves at 2300L and returns at 0800L. You have about 1 1/2 hr between legs. This is by far the worst. The other is BON (Bonaire, NA) which leaves at 2355L and returns at 1045L. The good thing about this one is it's a three man crew with a first class seat both ways. We used to do a CCS (Caracas, VZ) turn, which was also a three man crew but not sure if it is a seasonal thing or if it was discontinued. I'm sure there are several out of IAH as well.

 

[ShyFlyGuy]

What is a "red-eye" turn and how does someone fly 3 red-eyes with an hour between each flight?

I think you're close... It's probibally a "red-eye" DEN to the East coast, one shot up or down the coast, and then back home for rest. So it's three legs, not three "red-eye" turns.

Shy

 

[Singlecoil]

I read that to be three nights in a row flying a red-eye turn that had one hour between the legs on the turn. 2 legs a night; one out, one back. Three nights in a row.

 

[J and E's Daddy]

To change the rest and duty regs will take some sort of accident with alot of fatalies.

 

[IronCityBlue]

The press is so ignorant when it comes to what we do that its actually entertaining. Accuracy doesn't matter, and all they want to do is generate fear and sensationalism for the consumers of their product. The public has a natural fear of flying, and wants 100.00000% safety as an entitlement, something no industry on earth offers or ever has or ever will, but yet fares must be point and click specials lower than bus fares.

Meanwhile, any spin on any story that helps pander to the consumer's fear of flying makes money for the media and will contunie to be covered by ignorant reporters, out of context and misrepresented, often times intentionally.

 

[AWACoff]

Half our flying in GUM is redeyes. We have the Saipan Death March. You show around 6pm. Then you deadhead to Saipan. After an hour sit, you fly Manilla-Korror-Yap-Guam. You arrive around 5:30am. We also have GUM-TKK-PNI-TKK-GUM as a redeye. Nothing more fun than hitting a 6000ft piece of dirt in the rain at 2am...

I agree with D-Bo...falling asleep really could happen to everyone. Especially when you do consecutive redeyes.