Page 26 - April 2015 Volume19 Number 4

Twin Proficiency: AwarenessReservesby Thomas P. TurnerIt was a surprising and frightening Fatigue is real sleep periods the subjects arestatistic. Several years ago, Iattended the Bombardier Safety Stand-Down in Wichita, Kansas. The Stand-Down is a two-day series of safety seminars and workshops, aimed primarily at pilots and operators of business jets. During one presentation, the speaker asked the roughly 300 people in attendance to answer a question: “Have you ever fallen asleep in the cockpit in flight?” Responses were anonymous through a “clicker”- type remote system. The result: over 60% of the professional pilots in attendance admitted to having fallen asleep at the controls at least once. In follow-up questions, at least half of the remainder reported at least one instance when they found it very hard to stay awake in flight.More recently, I attended an NBAA’s Single-Pilot Safety Stand- Down. One of the speakers asked the same question of this group of pilots, most of who fly alone in piston twins and turbine airplanes. Once again, there was an anonymous response system; nearly two-thirds of the pilots reported instances of having great difficulty staying awake in flight. Several admitted to actually falling asleep while in solo command of an aircraft in flight.The National Transportation Safety Board reports that pilot fatigue issues were contributors to 23% of aircraft crashes in 2012. NTSB investigators are now researching an accident pilot’s sleep patterns in the 72 hours preceding a crash, when such information is available.24 • TWIN & TURBINENon-aviation, but nevertheless important, research by the Canadian Center for Occupational Health and Safety reveals that after rising from an uninterrupted eight- hours of sleep:• Being awake for 17 hours has the same deleterious performance effect as a 0.05 bloodalcohol content.• Being awake for 21 hours has the same performance effect as a 0.08 blood alcohol content – the legal limit for driving in Canada and most of the United States.• Being awake for 24 hours has the same performance effect asa blood alcohol content of 0.10.• Numerous studies list common behaviors in fatigue-study subjects. As you read the list, think about how often we read the same words in discussions of aviation crash factors.• Reduced decision-making ability. • Reduced ability to docomplex planning.• Reduced communication skills. • Reduced productivity andperformance.• Reduced attention and vigilance. • Reduced ability to handle stress. • Reduced reaction time – both inspeed and thought.• Loss of memory or the ability torecall details.• Failure to respond to changesin surroundings or information provided – loss of situational awareness.• Inability to stay awake, involuntary microsleeps – shortnot even aware are taking place. • Increased tendency forrisk-taking.• Increased forgetfulness.• Increased errors in judgment.It’s almost as if we made sure pilots get eight hours of uninterrupted sleep every night, and limited their duty day to avoid noticeable reductions in performance due to fatigue, we could virtually eliminate all aircraft crashes. That’s hyperbole, of course. But if the NTSB is right, we could eliminate nearly a quarter of all accidents if we could just deal with pilot fatigue.Everybody talks about it...To paraphrase Mark Twain, everybody talks about fatigue, but nobody does anything about it. Most Twin and Turbine pilots use the airplane for business. Limiting the duty day, that is, establishing a maximum number of hours from alarm clock to engine shutdown (NBAA recommends 14 hours maximum), runs counter to the realities of business and the flexibility we get from the use of a business or personal airplane. Reducing that 14-hour recommendation, when you haven’t had eight hours of uninterrupted sleep the night before, seems even more anti-business.How do we reconcile succeed- or-fail business reality to the life- and-death reality of flying while fatigued? Like any good business decision, it requires strategy and flexibility. Your strategy may be as simple as planning your meetingsAPRIL 2015