The Importance Of Fatigue In Pilots

One of the worst feelings is when you are making a long drive in a car and realize you don’t remember the last half hour or longer. Sometimes people say they were on autopilot but most likely, they are suffering from some form of fatigue. According to Webster’s dictionary fatigue is the state of being very tired or extreme weariness. (Webster’s 2015) This can be very dangerous while driving a car, and even more dangerous while flying an airplane. With advances in modern avionics and autopilots, safety should only increase but with advances in systems, often comes an increase in complacency. In the next generation aircraft of today, pilots often find themselves monitoring and managing the aircraft more than flying them. This often increases the likelihood of increased complacency and possible lowered safety margins when inattentive. Fatigue can be difficult for many pilots to mitigate as they often don’t realize they are fatigued until it is too late. Aviation accidents are usually attributed to many different causes, often pilot error but fatigue most likely is a mitigating factor. On February 12,

Personally I have been on a jump seat after flying numerous nights in a row and was unable to keep my eyes open on final approach. Had I been one of the pilots flying I would have been a danger to the flight, even though I felt fine before the flight had departed. Many pilots find themselves in the same situation as it is very difficult to predict when fatigue may take over and affect your judgement. I have also looked over at another crew member to find them asleep, likely fighting with fatigue as they said nothing to me or even warned me that they were feeling tired. I believe a proactive approach would be to allow one crew member to take a planned controlled nap, this could drastically increase a pilot’s alertness at times when work load and required attention were