A

few years ago, I took the jump seat on

a regular public transport flight from
Chicago to Phoenix on one of those
"red eye" specials. I had been up 36 hours trying to get home to Tucson.
It was the captain's leg and he was settling
back to read the paper. The first officer
seemed pretty relaxed, with his arm propped
on the glare shield looking out on the horizon. I didn't notice anything peculiar about
the scene so I tried to get some sleep.
Finally, ATC gave us a call to switch to Albuquerque Center, but no one stirred. The second call came a few minutes later, but still no
one moved.
As if on cue, another call came piping
through. The captain, now fully alert,
wrapped up his newspaper and hit the first
officer, "Hey wake up - Center is trying to get
you on the radio!"
We all seem to struggle in these conditions
of fatigue and overwork. Often it is for the
love of flying - but more commonly to get on
with our careers.
I remember during one interview, a member of the panel asked: "Have you ever broken any rules in your aviation career?" I
answered that I was fortunate enough to have
been employed by carriers that had never
asked me to break any rules for their benefit.
I left ashamed for "bending" the truth - but
I wanted the job. Although the company never
asked me to exceed duty times, it was clearly
the norm to work all day in the office, fly a few
hours, and then log only the forty-five minutes
before and fifteen minutes after the flight in
duty time records. After all, the company knew
I wanted to log flight time and I was no use if
I had exceeded my duty time limitations.
The end result was extreme fatigue, caused
by long days, several sectors, sometimes over
25 landings in a day, aircraft vibration and,
on occasion, IFR flights down to the minima.
The easiest time to omit is the time spent in
the office - no flight plans, fuel dockets or
AVDATA details to catch you out.
As a line pilot in general aviation, I felt it
my duty to "help" the company out by omission of duty times. I soon found myself working seven days straight, 120 hours duty per
fortnight and logging 29.9 hours per week.
Although I only flew six of the seven days,
my day of rest was spent either in the office
or washing planes. Soon, I hated my job.
But the reality of the danger did not occur
to me until a day after completion of a fourweek tour of duty with three days off in
between. Driving through the city, I was so
tired that I stopped caring about staying in my
lane. I laughed, and thought, "I just don't care'
I suddenly recognised that the same attitude had crept into my flying. So I vowed to
12 FLIGHT SAFETY AUSTRALIA AUTUMN 1997

Red-eye
special
How one pilot learned to say
no to excess duty times - and
got a promotion.

Although the pilots complained that their

flying hours decreased, after a while they
realised the benefits of some leisure time, and
began to appreciate the company as well.
For the first time, we stopped losing pilots
to other companies. We got more applications
from highly skilled pilots. Our training budget for the next financial year was underspent
because the new, highly skilled pilots required
less training. And they stayed longer.
Pilots are not doing a company any service
by more than 90 hours a fortnight at the airport.
Although I do not feel the laws in Australia
on flight and duty times are well written, they
can be made to work - with some difficulty to a charter operator's schedule. It takes effort
from both sides of the line.
UBTLE AND
direct presSsures
to
company as much as
possible to achieve operational goals can
mean accepting a lower salary or violating
minima.
The result is a level of pressure on the pilot
which can compound the symptoms of
fatigue. There is no doubt that this leads to
below optimal operational standards.
This is a hard situation to face. How easy is
it to say "no"? And should the pilot have to
say no? The pilot is in a vulnerable situation,
and it is the manager who holds all the cards.
General aviation depends upon a professional approach to aviation and flight safety.
Perhaps managers need to develop a greater
understanding of fatigue and stress.
It is not uncommon for pilots to fall asleep
during long-haul operations in advanced technology aircraft. There are a number of opinions as to why this occurs, such as a pilot's "body
clock" being out of sync due to irregular hours.
However, the most obvious factor relates to
boredom or "underload'
The symptoms of fatigue include a shorttempered attitude, focusing attention on a
single task, lack of concentration, irritability,
degradation in operational performance, and
- of course - sleepiness.
When you are fatigued, you often don't
know it. You might try to force yourself to perform.
In some cases, this results in missed information and errors which can contribute to an
accident. This situation cannot be regulated.
It is a decision which remains, and will probably always remain, with the pilot.

ANkY, IS

keep close to duty times, and to relax. I soon

found myself enjoying the job again.
After a while, I was promoted to management, because I had learned the diplomatic art
of saying no. My health, attitude and productivity improved. I tried subtly to get other pilots
in the company to follow my example. But they
would have nothing to do with it - the flight
hours were still the dangling carrot.
Everyone was "happy" because they were
getting the all important hours to get into a
regional. Aviation was more than a job - it
was life itself. After a few months, the other
pilots found themselves in the same predicament I had gone through.
The director could not understand why people
were getting upset. Morale hit rock bottom,
with rumblings of pay disputes. Something had
to give. We added more pilots and ground staff
to combat the problem of exploitation of
pilots and the resultant fatigue.
It was a hard decision at first, but was necessary for the long term. We had good
employees who knew our operation. Management understood that attrition of skilled
labour cost the company in the long term.

Mark Wiggins, department of aviation studies.

University of Western Sydney, Macarthur.