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Combating pilot fatigue
Why is it important to research fatigue in the aviation industry
Fatigue and its effects on aviation industry
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Recommended: Combating pilot fatigue
Fatigue is a growing concern and issue in the aviation industry. Although it has been for some time, recently mounting workloads and stress have factored into creating an escalating problem with real casualties and repercussions. “Pilot fatigue, heavy workloads… may have contributed to an air ambulance crashing into the sea at night during a medical mission…” (Crash Blamed 2006 p.31). Fatigue is an “insidious” condition that affects a pilot in a way that might make him feel justified in his decisions. (Wald 2008 C3). Without realizing the effects of sleepiness and stress, pilots often times make the wrong decision, believing it to be the right one, and suffering severe consequences, such as: passenger injures, crew injuries or even death, which occurs more often than not. Even though a pilot is well trained and may feel competent, he/she is still human and needs to recharge. (Waking up 2009 pB2). It behooves the industry, pilots, and citizens to carefully and stringently review and resolve scheduling issues as well as human factor for the sake and safety of all. Commute, Workload, Salary Help to Induce Fatigue There are several immediate causes of fatigue that pilots encounter. An immediate cause of pilot exhaustion is simply the pilot not getting sufficient hours of sleep. “This is not a 9-to-5 job, being an airline pilot, and how common is it to be flying when you really haven't had a night's sleep for many, many hours, and frankly, when you might be more tired than you should be?” (Were Crash Pilots…) Moreover, a pilot’s demanding expectations concerning paperwork and admin duties are also partly to blame. “A pilot’s exhaustion caused by his heavy administrative workload…contributed to the fatal crash of... ... middle of paper ... ... 2009. NA. Discovering Collection. Gale. Kansas State University Libraries. 3 Oct 2011 Pilot fatigue grows as problem for airlines; As the industry's finances worsen, pilots fret about falling asleep at the controls as flying hours get longer. July 26, 2004 p02 The Christian Science Monitor, p.02. Retrieved November 04, 2011, from Custom Newspapers via Gale 82% of Americans Rank Pilot Fatigue as Most Important Air Travel Concern. July 24, 2001 p5233PR Newswire, p.5233. Retrieved Nov 04, 2011, from Academic OneFile via Gale Crash blamed on pilot fatigue. Nov 10, 2006 p31 The Times (London, England), p.31. Retrieved Nov 14, 2011, from Custom Newspapers via Gale Wald, M L (June 12, 2008). Pilot fatigue is blamed for Michigan accident.(Finance). International Herald Tribune, p.14. Retrieved Nov 04, 2011, from Custom Newspapers via Gale
Handling and operating an airplane comes with great risk, but these risks that are present are handled with very different attitudes and dealt with in different ways depending on the environment the pilots are in.
Alarm fatigue is a growing problem that causes nurses to feel overwhelmed and not perform to the best of their abilities. Many people don’t understand the concept of alarm fatigue until they are in a hospital and hear the different noises going on first hand. Alarm fatigue occurs when nurses or other health care members have sensory overload due to the alarms, which then lead to ignoring the alarms raising concerns with patient safety (Horkan, 2014).
Jackson, A. C. & Earl, L. (2006). Prevalence of fatigue among commercial pilots. Oxford Journals. Retrieved from http://occmed.oxfordjournals.org/content/56/4/263.full
There are systems which run workshops for staff at Qantas, so that these staff can receive a better understanding of what is expected of them and so they improve (Qantas, 2017).
II. Topic Intro: This new threat is a massive pilot shortage, stemming from captains aging, a decrease in pilot training, and regulations
Along with the low stock index numbers of September 17th, the airline industry and travel stocks were also rocked. One of several airlines announcing layoffs, US Airways said that they would be terminating 11,000 jobs. These heavy losses were contributed to airlines “being grounded last week [week of September 11th], plus passengers have been apprehensive to fly, in the wake of the hijackings” (Stock Markets Reopen 1).
Pilots are professionals at their jobs. When people step into a plane they should feel safe and comfortable. When flying people are putting their life into the pilot's hands. But don’t worry not everyone can just fly a plane. Pilots need to take many classes and fly for many hours with an instructor before they can get the lowest and most basic pilot license. Pilots also need to log so many hours before they can go through the next stage of lessons to get a high ranked licsons. Just to get a private pilots license pilots need to log over 250 hours. Pilots fly many different types of planes to log their hours before they can fly commercial airliners. When they first step foot into a passenger plane they do not take the controls right away. They must go through the stages of being a co-pilots first and build up their experience. Being a co-pilot builds up experience but also gets the pilots comfortable with their surroundings. Pilots must log over 2,000 hours of being a co-pilot and then go through more schooling and training. When you walk into a plane usually the pilot stands by the door and greets his passengers When ...
Researchers have linked burnout as a contributing factor health conditions such as sleep disturbances, decreased immune system. Professions that are prone to burnout are those who require a great deal of contact and responsibility of other people. Among those professions are teachers, nurses, physicians, social workers, therapists, police, an...
For example, Part 117 Flight-Time Limitations and Rest Requirements (Part 117) is an amendment by the FAA to existing flight duty and rest requirements. The amendment works by recognizing the risks associated with fatigue on the safety of airline travel. It mitigates these risks by restricting the number of hours flown and the amount of hours an airline pilot is on duty. It, also, increases the amount of hours a pilot must be on rest in between duty periods. Unfortunately, the FAA only recognizes the importance of fatigue on passenger pilots and neglects to be concerned with cargo operations.
Southwest Airlines is one of the most successful airlines in the United States. There has never been layoffs or strikes in the history of the company, although there were several times when layoffs could have been justified, including the months following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. However, Southwest's Mission statement says “Above all, Employees will be provided the same concern, respect, and caring attitude within the organization that they are expected to share externally with every Southwest Customer.” (Southwest, 1988). The Airline has always believed that their corporate culture is one of the keys to their success. The culture recognizes that employees have emotional intelligence and that their attitudes and morale are key to the teamwork and creative environment.
Tevlin, J. (1999, November 21). Cabin pressure-the sky is the limit for millions of Americans who are afraid to fly. But a Northwest Airlines program helps people tame their terror. The Minneapolis Star Tribune: Newspaper of the Twin-Cities. p. 1E.
Since the birth of aviation, man has been tasked with operating aircraft safely, yet effectively. From the beginning days of being able to simply operate an aircraft without injury for seconds at a time, to today's issues with safety in supersonic international travel, crew resource management has been with us in some from the beginning. The term "CRM" began to spread in the 1980's among the major airlines, fueled by industry and university research into human factors. The U.S. military has also taken a very active in the development of CRM techniques to aid in the high stress environment of military aviation.
According to The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, it is estimated that fatigue is a cause in 100,000 auto crashes and 1,550 crash-related deaths a year in the U.S.
In order to further decrease the number of airplane accidents stricter measures of evaluating an aircrafts operability prior to take off need to be implemented. Additionally, better training of pilots can also lead to a more preferable outcome should a problem arise as the pilot will be better equipped to handle an emergency.
Human beings are at times lazy, they always look for the easy way to everything, so they use shortcuts in all parts of their life including their professional one. But, when employees take shortcuts while accomplishing their tasks, especially when working with chemicals or complex machinery, often they put themselves at risk of being injured or dying. Further, a worker’s personal and professional life are linked, so if he or she is stressed, it might affect their ability to concentrate, which causes