Sleepy Pilots Need Some Sleep

BJT sister publication Aviation International News published an interesting story about pilot fatigue and technological methods of detecting fatigue before it causes a problem, but why is this an issue? Obviously, we don’t want pilots falling asleep before trying to land the airplane, and there are strict rules about crew duty times, which you may have run into while trying to get somewhere on an airline. Sometimes delays for other reasons like maintenance push the crew beyond the allowable duty time, and then the airline has to find a fresh crew to take the flight, which causes further delays or even cancellations.

So, fatigue is a safety issue, and it’s important to keep fatigued pilots out of the flight deck. But honestly, have you ever slipped into microsleep for a moment or two while driving on an incredibly boring straight road or commuting the exact same way every day? Imagine being in the front seat of an airliner, on autopilot (because that’s how airliners are flown), for hour after hour with virtually no change except watching the GPS mileage and the gas gauges click down and the weather slowly changing outside. It can be incredibly boring, but pilots are not supposed to do anything else, like play games or read non-flying-related material. If your seatmate (captain or copilot) is not good at conversation and you’re in the low cycle of your biorythm, staying awake can be incredibly hard, especially if you’ve been flying at night and are watching the sun rise in the distance.

This is where the fatigue-detection devices would raise an alarm, and it would be time for the sleepy crewmember to get up and get their blood flowing or do something to get over the fatigue. Easier said than done.

But there is a simpler method of mitigating fatigue in the flight deck, and unfortunately, it’s not legal in the U.S. For some unknown reason, while many other countries allow pilots to take naps in an aircraft that requires two pilots, this is illegal under FAA regulations. The FAA has never and doesn’t seem to want to allow naps.

There is a difference between a restorative 20-minute recharging nap, however, and one where the subject falls into deep sleep and wakes up confused for a few minutes. There is even a case where a pilot woke up like that and started pushing on controls while still in the confused state. But pilots have been napping successfully for years, legally and likely illegally, and napping is a proven fatigue mitigation technique. It’s just hard to understand why the FAA doesn’t allow this.

In any case, if you get delayed because of crew (pilot and flight attendant) duty times, at least rest assured that the rules are there to keep you safe.