Now pilots can sleep when flying an aircraft!

FAA falls short on plan to aid fatigued workers
AP - Sat Apr 23rd, 2011 5:40 PM EDT
WASHINGTON - The Federal Aviation Administration told a
government watchdog nearly two years ago that it was prepared
to let air traffic controllers sleep or rest during work shifts when
they weren't directing aircraft. It still hasn't happened.
When the FAA proposed new limits on airline pilots' work
schedules to prevent fatigue last year, it rejected its own research
recommending that pilots be allowed to take naps during the
cruise phase of flight— typically most of a flight when the plane is
neither climbing nor descending — so that they are refreshed and
alert during landings.
And an FAA committee that has been working for several years on
new work rules to prevent fatigue among night-shift airline
mechanics has made little progress, said one committee member.
Allowing naps during breaks on overnight shifts was dismissed as
a nonstarter.
In a 24/7 industry like aviation, fatigue is a fact of life. Managing
work schedules to minimize fatigue can make the difference
between life and death. There have been 14 aviation accidents with
263 fatalities since 1993 in which fatigue was cited as the cause or a
contributing factor, according to the National Transportation Safety
Board.
Yet the FAA has struggled unsuccessfully for decades to revamp
workplace rules for controllers, pilots and mechanics despite a
consensus that fatigue is one of the industry's most pressing safety
issues. While recognizing the problem is easy, developing
workable solutions acceptable to airlines, labor unions and
government regulators is tough. Money is a factor. So are public
perceptions.
The issue has taken on a new urgency after at least five recent
incidents of controllers falling asleep on the job while working
overnight shifts. In two cases, controllers have been fired.
"It's tough to see controllers facing firing when the problem of
(midnight) shift sleep deprivation has been acknowledged by the
FAA," said Rick Perl, a retired controller in Oxnard, Calif. "Sacrificial
lambs is how it feels to me."
In a sixth incident, a controller working an overnight shift was
suspended for watching a movie on a portable DVD player while he
was supposed to be monitoring air traffic. Present and former
controllers have told The Associated Press that it's not unusual for
controllers on overnight shifts at radar facilities when traffic is light
to watch movies, play online poker, and read magazines to help
them stay awake.
The alternative, they said, is to spend eight hours in a dimly lit
room staring at a radar scope while trying not to fall asleep. The
controllers asked not to be identified so as not to jeopardize their
jobs or the jobs of coworkers.
Industry and labor officials give FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt
credit for doing more than past agency chiefs to address the
fatigue problem. Last year, the agency proposed the first new
limits on work schedules for pilots in decades. But industry-
supported legislation in Congress, if passed, could create major
obstacles to the rules becoming final.
Babbitt also signed a contract with the National Air Traffic
Controllers Association in 2009 that, among other things, required
the agency create a working group with the union to address
controller fatigue. FAA held off on its plan to allow sleep or rest by
controllers during their shifts when not working air traffic to allow
the working group time to address the issue, said spokeswoman
Laura Brown.
In January, after a year and a half of work, the group briefed
Babbitt on 12 recommendations. One was that controllers be
allowed sleeps breaks for as long as two hours when working
overnight shifts. Sleep experts say scheduled naps during night
shifts— especially between about 1 a.m. and 5 a.m. when even
well-rested people naturally crave sleep — help keep workers alert
when they return to their duties.
Another recommendation was that controllers be allowed to sleep
during the 20 to 30 minute breaks they typically receive every few
hours during day shifts. Currently, the FAA forbids sleeping on the
job, even during breaks.
Babbitt was "abundantly enthusiastic about us moving forward,"
said Peter Gimbrere, who is spearheading the controllers
association's fatigue effort.
But the administrator and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood
flatly rejected both nighttime naps and on-break snoozes after
publicity about controllers falling asleep.
"We don't pay people to sleep at work at the FAA," Babbitt told AP
last week. "I don't know anybody that pays anybody to sleep unless
you're buying people to have sleep studies."
Patrick Forrey, a former president of the controllers' union, called
that position "unfortunate and political."
"People think, 'Why are we paying people to take a nap?' " Forrey
said in an interview. "It doesn't necessarily play well with the
public, especially in an economy like today."
Paul Rinaldi, the current controllers association president, said
Friday that he intends to press the FAA to adopt all 12
recommendations.
"The recommendations are based on advice from NASA and the
military and in line with international air traffic control best
practices," he said in a statement. Actions the FAA has taken
recently to address the fatigue problem— adding a second
controller on overnight shifts at more than two dozen airports and
giving controllers an extra hour between work shifts— have
"barely scratched the surface," he said.
FAA is reviewing the recommendations, Brown said.
Curt Graeber, a former NASA scientist who conducted FAA-funded
sleep studies of pilots, wasn't surprised that the FAA hasn't
embraced napping for controllers. Graeber was a member of an
FAA committee in the early 1990s that drafted an advisory to
airlines permitting pilot napping and setting out ground rules.
"We thought everything was fine. We submitted the draft advisory
circular (to the FAA), everyone agreed with it, and then everything
stopped," said Graeber, now chairman of the International Civil
Aviation Organization's fatigue task force. But other countries and
the European Aviation Safety Agency used the FAA draft circular
and research to write their own regulations permitting pilot
napping, he said.
Many pilots acknowledge privately that they've dozed off in the
cockpit at times, especially while cruising when the workload is
light. But critics say there's greater risk in not having two pilots
available at all times than there is that a pilot may doze off.
Graeber disagreed. "Look at it this way" he said, "would you rather
have your pilot taking a nap while you are having your steak in the
back (of the plane), or falling asleep on the approach into Hong
Kong?"
Meanwhile, the FAA's committee working on new work rules for
reducing fatigue among aircraft maintenance workers "is going
nowhere," said safety consultant John Goglia, a former NTSB board
member who began his career as an airline mechanic.
Airlines don't want new rules because they would complicate their
scheduling and they'd have to hire more people, he said. Unions
also don't want new rules because "they're working tons of
overtime to make up for the pay cuts that they took."
But that doesn't mean mechanics aren't struggling to stay awake,
especially during slow periods, Goglia said.
"Everybody who works nights in aviation knows if you're not busy
you're going to fall asleep because you're chronically fatigued," he
said.
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Associated Press writer Ray Henry contributed to this story.