The Effects of Commuting on Pilot Fatigue (2011) / Chapter Skim
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3 Aviation Safety and Pilot Commuting
3 Aviation Safety and Pilot Commuting
Pages 45-76
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From page 45... ...
Of particular importance for the focus of this report is a discussion of those features of the aviation system that can mitigate the risk of individual pilot fatigue for flight safety. In the third section the chapter examines investigations of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB)
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From page 46... ...
1 Transportation safety is usually measured as the ratio of some adverse outcome, such as an accident or fatality, to a measure of exposure such as the number of trips taken or the distance traveled.
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From page 47... ...
Figure 3-2 shows the aviation safety record from 1959 through 2009 for U.S. and Canadian operators (combined)
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From page 48... ...
SOURCE: Boeing Commercial Airplanes (2011, p.
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From page 49... ...
SOURCE: Data on passenger fatalities and enplanements calculated from information from the National Transportation Safety Board (n.d.) and the Bureau of Transportation Statistics (n.d.-a)
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From page 50... ...
. Many of these and other improvements have resulted from the combined efforts of many people and organizations -- including the National Transportation Safety Board, the Federal Aviation Administration, airframe and aircraft component manufacturers, airlines, pilots, and many others -- to understand the causes of accidents and to take steps to reduce the risk of future accidents.
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From page 51... ...
Taken together, however, they help mitigate potential safety risks of fatigue. FATIGUE-RELATED AVIATION ACCIDENTS A complication in understanding past accidents and in preventing future ones is that airline accidents rarely have a single cause.
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From page 52... ...
Beyond assessing the role of fatigue in an accident, assessing the role that pilot commuting may have played in pilot fatigue may be an even greater challenge. A pilot who lives close to the domicile and has a short commute may not necessarily arrive for duty well rested depending on the pilot's activities prior to the commute.
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From page 53... ...
Committee's Method of Analysis Recognizing these challenges, the committee examined NTSB reports of recent accidents6 to try to assess the roles that pilot fatigue and commuting may have played as risks to aviation safety. Between 1982 and 2010, there were 863 accidents in the Part 121 portion of the industry where the NTSB had determined the probable cause and contributing factors7 to the accident.
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From page 54... ...
(National Transportation Safety Board, 2010b, pp.
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From page 55... ...
. TABLE 3-2 Fatigue-Related Accidents, 1993-2009 Category of Fatal/ Event Date Operator Name Operation Flight Phase Nonfatal Aug 18-93 Connie Kalitta Services Nonscheduled Approach Serious May 8-99 American Eagle Scheduled Landing-Roll Serious June 1-99 American Airlines Scheduled Landing Fatal July 26-02 Federal Express Corp Nonscheduled Approach Serious Oct 19-04 Corporate Airlines Scheduled Approach Fatal Feb 18-07 Shuttle America Scheduled Landing-Roll None Corporation Apr 12-07 Pinnacle Airlines Scheduled Landing None Jan 27-09 Empire Airlines Nonscheduled Landing Serious May 6-09 World Airways Nonscheduled Landing-Flare Serious SOURCE: National Transportation Safety Board Accident and Incident Data System, accessed through the Federal Aviation Administration's Aviation Safety Information Analysis and Sharing System (ASIAS)
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From page 56... ...
Also contributing were the inadequate crew resource management training and the inadequate training and guidance by American International Airways, Inc., to the flight crew for operations at special airports, such as Guantanamo Bay; and the Navy's failure to provide a system that would assure that the local tower controller was aware of the inoperative strobe light so as to provide the flight crew with such information" (National Transportation Safety Board, 1994a, p.
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From page 57... ...
about 0100. They were asleep about 0130, and awoke about 0445 for the accident flight, which was scheduled to depart at 0610" (National Transportation Safety Board, 1999, p.
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From page 58... ...
Contributing to the accident was a combination of the captain's and first officer's fatigue, the captain's and first officer's failure to adhere to company flight procedures, the captain's and flight engineer's failure to monitor the approach, and the first officer's color vision deficiency" (National Transportation Safety Board, 2004, p.
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From page 59... ...
The airplane's nose gear collapsed during the overrun. Of the 2 flight crew members, 2 flight attendants, and 71 passengers on board, 3 passengers received minor injuries" (National Transportation Safety Board, 2008b, p.
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From page 60... ...
The captain stated that he was planning to eat lunch in ATL before the accident flight leg but was unable to do so because of the delays from the earlier flight legs and the change in first officers" (p.
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From page 61... ...
the captain's fatigue, which affected his ability to effectively plan for and monitor the approach and landing; and (4) Shuttle America's failure to administer an attendance policy that permitted flight crew members to call in as fatigued without fear of reprisals" (National Transportation Safety Board, 2008b, p.
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From page 62... ...
the Federal Aviation Administration pilot flight and duty-time regulations that permitted the pilots' long, demanding duty day and (2) the TVC operations supervisor's use of ambiguous and unspecific radio phraseology in providing runway braking information" (National Transportation Safety Board, 2008a, p.
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From page 63... ...
the flight crew's poor crew resource management, and (4) fatigue due to the time of day in which the accident occurred and a cumulative sleep debt, which likely impaired the captain's performance" (National Transportation Safety Board, 2011, p.
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From page 64... ...
and sleep there the night 10 The only published information appears to be data included in the NTSB report that followed the Colgan Air crash, which reported that 68 percent of the Colgan pilots based at Newark were commuting, with the commutes being various distances (National Transportation Safety Board, 2010, pp.
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From page 65... ...
Notwithstanding these limitations and recognizing that the data were not provided by all airlines, the committee believes that the home-todomicile distance patterns described below provide some insight into pilot commuting patterns found in each of four segments of the industry: Mainline airlines were defined as those that predominately operate scheduled passenger operations in jet aircraft with more than 90 seats (under Part 121 rules)
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From page 66... ...
Again, by adding these three columns, one can see that 22 percent of both mainline pilots and regional pilots have home-to-domicile distances of greater than 750 miles while 26 percent of cargo pilots and 30 percent of charter pilots have these longer home-todomicile distances.
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From page 67... ...
So in spite of differences in average age, pay, average flight length, and industry structure, it appears that the home-to-domicile commuting patterns of mainline and regional pilots are very similar. Table 3-4 shows the distribution of home-to-domicile distances for mainline pilots by airline.
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From page 68... ...
Table 3-5 shows the distribution of home-to-domicile distances for regional pilots by airline. The 11 regional airlines that provided data included airlines of varying size and operating in different regions of the country.
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From page 69... ...
Table 3-7 shows the distribution of home-to-domicile distances for charter pilots by airline. The five charter airlines that provided data included airlines of varying size and operating patterns.
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From page 70... ...
Recognizing these caveats, the committee analyzed the available zip code data to obtain additional descriptive information related to pilot residences and domiciles specific to time zones. The majority of pilots (73.5 percent)
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From page 71... ...
Figure 3-5.eps travel a greater distance than the pilots who have a residence and domicile in the same time zone and some pilots who crossed three time zones reported a shorter distance between domicile and residence than pilots who crossed only one or two time zones. The greatest distances travelled obviously involve travel across multiple time zones.
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From page 72... ...
ALL ML Reg'l Cargo Chart.
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From page 73... ...
a 1,260-1,320 2.0 1.8 2.2 2.2 1.0 1,320-1,380 1.3 2.0 0.9 0.3 1.5 1,380-1,440 4.5 7.4 3.4 1.2 1,440-1,500 1.0 1.1 0.8 1.4 1,500-1,560 0.8 1.0 0.2 1.1 1,560-1,620 0.7 1.0 0.2 0.5 1,620-1,680 0.1 0.2 0.1 0.1 1,680-1,740 0.1 0.1 a 1,740-1,800 1,800-1,860 1,860-1,920 0.1 a 1,920-1,980 0.1 0.3 1,980-2,040 0.2 0.7 2,040-2,100 2,100-2,160 0.1 2,160-2,220 0.1 2,220-2,280 2,280-2,340 0.1 0.2 2,340-8,400b 0.1 0.1 0.3 continued 73
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From page 74... ...
TABLE 3-8 Continued 74 Two Time Zones Three Time Zones MILES ALL ML Reg'l Cargo Chart. ALL ML Reg'l Cargo Chart.
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From page 75... ...
1,320-1,380 4.6 4.6 7.2 0.3 9.3 1,380-1,440 7.2 7.5 8.5 4.3 11.6 1,440-1,500 4.4 5.5 5.0 0.3 9.3 1,500-1,560 6.4 5.1 6.5 8.3 14.0 1,560-1,620 12.4 13.1 11.7 12.3 7.0 1,620-1,680 13.6 15.1 7.7 19.6 0.4 0.4 0.7 1,680-1,740 6.2 1.2 16.7 6.0 1.0 1.2 0.7 1,740-1,800 5.6 4.9 5.2 8.6 2.7 3.9 1,800-1,860 6.9 5.8 6.7 11.0 1,860-1,920 6.6 2.1 4.5 21.6 6.7 5.9 12.2 1,920-1,980 2.1 3.5 0.7 0.7 8.6 9.8 7.5 16.7 1,980-2,040 1.5 2.1 1.7 5.3 5.3 6.8 16.7 2,040-2,100 0.7 0.4 2.0 6.0 6.3 7.5 2,100-2,160 4.3 6.7 3.0 0.7 3.4 3.1 6.1 2,160-2,220 0.5 0.9 5.1 5.1 7.5 2,220-2,280 0.3 0.5 0.3 4.9 4.3 8.8 2,280-2,340 0.3 0.7 3.9 3.5 6.8 2,340-8,400b 2.8 3.5 5.0 52.0 51.3 35.4 100.0 66.7 aLessthan .05 percent. bThe distance between domicile and residence for all pilots who travelled across four time zones were all in this range.
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From page 76... ...
However, there is insufficient evidence to determine the extent to which pilot commuting has been a safety risk in part because little is known about specific pilot commuting practices and in part because the safety checks, balances, and redundancies in the aviation system may mitigate the consequences of pilot fatigue. 11 For details, see http://asrs.arc.nasa.gov/overview/summary.html [May 2011]
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