Fatigue in Aviation Accidents
Safety experts reckon that, pilot fatigue contributes to 15-20% of fatal aviation accidents caused by human error. They also establish an increased probability of a human factor accident the longer pilots are on duty, especially for duty periods of 13 hours and above (see following statements):
"It is estimated (e.g. by the NTSB) that fatigue contributes to 20-30% of transport accidents (i.e. air, sea, road, rail). Since, in commercial aviation operations, about 70% of fatal accidents are related to human error, it can be assumed that the risk of the fatigue of the operating crew contributes about 15-20% to the overall accident rate. The same view of fatigue as a major risk factor is shared by leading scientists in the area, as documented in several consensus statements." The role of EU FTL legislation in reducing cumulative fatigue in civil aviation.
"For 10-12 hours of duty time the proportion of accident pilots with this length of duty period is 1.7 times as large as for all pilots. For pilots with 13 or more hours of duty, the proportion of accident pilot duty periods is over five and a half times as high. 20% of human factor accidents occurred to pilots who had been on duty for 10 or more hours, but only 10% of pilot duty hours occurred during that time. Similarly, 5% of human factor accidents occurred to pilots who had been on duty for 13 or more hours, where only 1% of pilot duty hours occur during that time. There is a discernible pattern of increased probability of an accident the greater the hours of duty time for pilots." See. Federal Aviation Administration, Office of Aviation Policy and Plans, Washington, DC 20591, USA, March 2003.
Recent examples of pilot fatigue endangering the safety of passengers are the serious incident in Iceland (in 2007), the Colgan Air accident in the US in 2009 (50 people killed – see America Acts on Pilot Fatigue) and the Air India crash in 2010 (158 dead).
An undisclosed judicial inquiry report, obtained recently by the French news magazine Le Point cites pilot fatigue as contributing factor to the Air France Flight 447 accident. The AF 447 crash happened on 1 June 2009 during a night flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris-Charles de Gaulle and cost the lives of all 228 people on board of the aircraft. The accident had previously been investigated by the French Accident Investigation Body BEA, whose report does not differ much from the judicial inquiry report. Except for the conclusions on one point: fatigue.www.dead-tired.eu
Fatigue has also been quoted in an official accident investigation report, published on 1 March 2013. This report identifies pilot fatigue as a probable contributor to the Afriqiyah Airways 771 accident in 2010. During a night flight from Johannesburg (South Africa) to Tripoli (Libya) the plane with 93 passengers and 11 crew members on board crashed during a go-around at Tripoli airport. Sixty-one Dutch nationals were among those killed. Only one passenger, 9-year-old Dutch boy, survived the crash.
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Famous quotes containing the words fatigue and/or accidents:
“He is asleep. He knows no longer the fatigue of the work of deciding, the work to finish. He sleeps, he has no longer to strain, to force himself, to require of himself that which he cannot do. He no longer bears the cross of that interior life which proscribes rest, distraction, weaknesshe sleeps and thinks no longer, he has no more duties or chores, no, no, and I, old and tired, oh! I envy that he sleeps and will soon die.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)
“Depression moods lead, almost invariably, to accidents. But, when they occur, our mood changes again, since the accident shows we can draw the world in our wake, and that we still retain some degree of power even when our spirits are low. A series of accidents creates a positively light-hearted state, out of consideration for this strange power.”
—Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)