Fatigue is Airlines Most Pressing Safety Issue

As anxious as travelers are to find cheap airplane tickets and discount hotel rooms or cheap vacation packages, almost all passengers would say flying safely should be everyones top priority. Unfortunately money and politics, particularly public perception, is getting in the way of solving the problem of air controller fatigue.

Since February there have been at least nine documented instances of controllers falling asleep on the job while working overnight shifts. In two cases the offending controllers were fired.

There have been 14 airline accidents resulting in 263 fatalities since 1993 in which fatigue was cited as the cause or a contributing factor.

Current and former controllers have acknowledged that it is not unusual for controllers on overnight shifts at radar facilities when traffic is light to watch movies, access the Internet, and read magazines to help them stay awake. The problem is that without such distractions it is very challenging to stay awake while sitting in a dimly lit room staring at a radar scope for eight hours at a stretch.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) asked the National Air Traffic Controllers Association in 2009 to come up with suggestions to address controller fatigue. One of their recommendations was that controllers be allowed sleep breaks for as long as two hours when working overnight shifts. Another recommendation was that controllers be allowed to sleep during the 20 to 30 minutes breaks they typically receive every few hours during day shifts. Current FAA rules forbid sleeping on the job even during breaks.

Politics got in the way of these recommendations being implemented. The Transportation Secretary responded saying We dont pay people to sleep at work at the FAA.

Airlines are against new rules that would limit air controller overtime because it would complicate their scheduling and require that more controllers be hired. The controllers union does not want such rules because their members want to work overtime to offset pay cuts that they have accepted.