Are tired pilots compromising our safety?
 

This is particulary worrying - should we - the travelling public be concerned about this? Especially when you read further into the news item that it says:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6236810.stm

Re: Are tired pilots compromising our safety?
 

Not as much as poisoned pilots are.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/ma...=OTC-Autonolnk

Although this link is old, it was reported in the press again this weekend

Re: Are tired pilots compromising our safety?
 

This is why, whenever possible (ok, just the once) I let Iron Maiden's Bruce Dickenson fly the plane I'm on.

Re: Are tired pilots compromising our safety?
 

I find it a odd that a pilot fell asleep for 10 mins and the co-pilot/captain/2nd officer didn't notice?

Re: Are tired pilots compromising our safety?
 

That is some number if 45% of Pilots which is suposed to be a good employment I allways thought with reasonable pay live in fear of disciplinary action, whats that say for the rest of the country, there must be in excess of 60% of the population working daily and each day are in some fear of disciplinary action if they dont attain certain figures many of which is unrealistic without breaking laws or performing under major duress to attain unreasonable expectations. Way to go society, lets face it corporate profits are far more important than life, and people wonder why theres so many on the sick.

Re: Are tired pilots compromising our safety?
 

Might have done and decided if the Pilot's fallen asleep, he obviously needs it.
Better to have a sleeping pilot who then is awake and alert later, than a sleepy pilot throughout the flight.
Just a thought.

Re: Are tired pilots compromising our safety?
 

Hmm you can see where chinese whispers comes from cant you ? Unless of course I too am misreading it.

The co-piltot told the captain to catch some shut eye he can take over for a while as the captain was exhausted, which he did so, the captain awoke because of becoming aware no-one was responding to air traffic control to find the co-pilot had also dropped of for a few etxraZZZzzzzz. Dnnt really see what there is to be confused over, the cabin was asleep, both of them, it was lucky the plane did not take a premature landing.

Re: Are tired pilots compromising our safety?
 

Ideally though, at least one should be awake to take control if the Autopilot fouls up (and they do foul up).

Re: Are tired pilots compromising our safety?
 

although the vast majority of cases where autopilot has failed are (or at least were 10 years ago, when I wrote my dissertation) still caused by human error, e.g. miscalculating flight paths or not taking hills into consideration, etc...

Re: Are tired pilots compromising our safety?
 

Sorry, I thought Gavin was referring to the one mentioned in the first quote, who said "I have fallen asleep unintentionally in the air where you close your eyes for a second and realise that 10 minutes have passed." rather than the second one where 10 minutes weren't mentioned, and it had obviously been agreed between the two pilots (just not for the co-pilot to sleep too!).

Re: Are tired pilots compromising our safety?
 

I find this odd, as planes can now take off and land without the the pilot touching the controls.

There are two pilots, in much the same way as on long distance bus journeys there are two drivers - so why aren't one of the pilots sleeping for part of the journey??

Re: Are tired pilots compromising our safety?
 

Other than at times of risk such as take-offs and landings, I can't see why it's not policy on flights of a certain length for one pilot to sleep other than security.
Remember the Egyptian flight that crashed while the co-pilot was sleeping?
There was a suggestion that it was suicide.

Re: Are tired pilots compromising our safety?
 

There may be impending dangers that require manual input though, such as two planes that cross the same space and altitude, which is becoming a more common occurrence as our skies get busier. Unfortunately, a collision of this nature actually happened several years ago (Not because pilots were sleeping), as this short youtube clip shows. [Not for the faint hearted]

An autopilot system will not correct itself in such circumstances, hence the need for manual intervention.

Re: Are tired pilots compromising our safety?
 

Do tired truck drivers compromise our safety when were heading down the A45....

Short answer.. yes...

Re: Are tired pilots compromising our safety?
 

The Russians had crash avoidance radar which if on autopilot would have saved them.
Unfortunately, the radar said they should go up, but the overworked and now murdered controller told them to go down.

Re: Are tired pilots compromising our safety?
 

Tiredness is a safety issue just about anywhere and is very common. Its the reason for the casue that needs addressing, its a very serious problem which I dont believe any capitalism based society can resolve it. The reason for the cause is one and the same as to why most goods today are designed to breakdown at some point rather than, achieve the excellence that it is capable of, it needs breakdowns so it can reduce life span while making the lifespan appear acceptable. More is spent today on ensuring components and goods have a break point than is spent on ensuring goods and their components general break point is acceptable. The excuse used most of the time blaming it on end users to systems today are more complex is nothing but a misnomer to avoid the truth.

The reason is greed, the need to show profits rather than product performance etc. A product which sells and breaks is far more desirable to a company than a product which sells less but has a much higher reliability rate. This is also a huge watse in resources. One of the big fors for capitalism is to reduce such wastage as available funds is what should be the restricting factor, it has however been turned around and has become one of the biggest reasons for excess waste of the planets resources as it has created a throwaway society instead of one which looks for the utmost quality. The more disposable society becomes, the more is turned over in finance so the cycle has actually began turning in the opposite direction it should be, and mankind is supposedly the most intelligent species here ?

The root:
Why pay workers a proper wage for a set number of hours in a week which means you would need more staff, when you can very easily employ 25% less staff, pay them less initially and offer the extra wages in overtime, its all part of cost cutting excercises rather than improving quality of service or goods. excercises.

This is also the very practice that leads to parents having less time and patience for their children, so proper guidence and better family values are much less likely, kids have less time with the role models they should be looking at and more time to roam around freely and mix with role models that create the undesirable elements in society. It is often said, a mans misfortune is often of his own doing, well the same goes for a society.

Re: Are tired pilots compromising our safety?
 

The problem is that with the increasingly low prices people are expecting to pay for air travel (which are falling far faster than the costs), airlines will cut corners.

One way they can do this is to ensure that their planes and pilots are on the ground for as little time as possible. One obvious side effect of this is that pilots may not be getting as much relaxation time as they really need.

However, when on the flight deck, it should be OK for one pilot to take a nap, as long as the other is awake to cope with any emergencies the autopilot can't.

We had all better pray they haven't cut maintenance back as far as Micheal Crichton hints in his book, Airframe. I don't think they have, although I suspect they have cut it back as far as they can legally.

Re: Are tired pilots compromising our safety?
 

NitroNutter has it all in one, we in the corp era where profit and growth is king, how common is it now that we expect every adult to work and overtime should be expected for a good salary.

Companies often discipline for time of even if genuine and will discipline for workers not doing overtim etc. All for increased profits as a result of recruiting less staff.