6 Miles Up and Sleepy : Pilots, Airlines Struggle to Cope With Jet Lag, Fatigue in Cockpit

Airline pilots, weary from flying many hours across multiple time zones, often wander out of assigned air space, land on wrong runways and even fall asleep at the controls of planes carrying hundreds of passengers.

A review of sleep research and interviews with researchers and pilots by The Associated Press found the significance of fatigue, long a problem in air travel, has grown along with the deregulated airline industry.

Government documents obtained by the AP describe about 600 incidents over the last five years, an average of two a week, in which air crews blamed fatigue for potentially dangerous mistakes in navigation, communications and piloting.

Although never officially listed as a cause in any U.S. commercial aviation accident, fatigue has been linked to several incidents. A still unreleased report by the Canadian Aviation Safety Board cites fatigue as a factor in the Dec. 12, 1985, crash in Gander, Newfoundland, of a charter plane carrying 248 U.S. servicemen and a crew of eight home for Christmas from the Middle East.

Many people interviewed blame airline deregulation for the mounting reports of fatigue. Deregulation brought a competitive explosion in air travel, and pilots contend their airlines try to lower costs by working them harder, sometimes with schedules that keep them flying all night and into the next day.

These work hours, say the pilots, affect their concentration.

“When you’re fatigued, you get distracted easily. You’ll miss a radio call, or enter the wrong data or read it wrong,” said Dave Linsley, a United Airlines captain and a pilot’s union spokesman from New Jersey. “Then you get into physical problems, hitting the wrong switch, over-controlling the aircraft, sometimes turning the wrong way or busting an altitude.

“It comes down to both of you sitting at the controls and shaking your heads to stay on top of things.”

Linsley was among two dozen pilots interviewed by the AP. Many talked of falling asleep in the cockpit.

“I’ve flown trips that weren’t safe because we were all so exhausted,” said a Northwest Airlines captain who asked not to be identified. “I’ve flown trips that leave at midnight with three legs (takeoffs and landings) and you arrive at noon, feeling like a piece of dog meat.”

Pilots aren’t alone in their concern. Researchers such as NASA psychologist R. Curtis Graeber believe pilots often fly beyond their endurance.

“I am convinced that serious errors occur that are facilitated by fatigue, sleep loss, jet lag, whatever you want to call it,” said Graeber, lead scientist at the Aviation Systems Research Branch of the NASA-Ames Research Center at Moffett Field south of San Francisco.

Although U.S. airlines have the world’s best safety record, Graeber and others worry that pilots’ schedules don’t consider the grinding, numbing effects that 15-hour days, abrupt shift changes or multiple time zone travel can have.

The pilots agree.

“Sometimes, if you’ve flown several legs and had a rough day with bad weather, you realize you’re not seeing things you’re supposed to see,” said an Eastern captain who asked not to be identified. “I’ve flown at 2 in the morning when I realize I’ve fallen into a hypnotic state. I’ve been on airplanes where I don’t remember the last three legs from the night before.”

Fatigue contributed to at least two recent air accidents:

- The Newfoundland crash of the Arrow Air DC-8, taking off for Ft. Campbell, Ky. The preliminary report, as yet unreleased and subject to modification, blames icing and crew fatigue, noting the crew flew an exhausting schedule in the previous 12 days, including short layovers, multiple time zones and excessive flight hours.

Chronic Fatigue Feared

The report cites a “high potential for the development of chronic fatigue” among the crew and says U.S. flight-time limitations “do not reflect recent advances in the understanding of the deleterious effects of fatigue.”

- The Feb. 19, 1985, “in-flight upset” of a China Airlines 747 flying from Taipei to Los Angeles. National Transportation Safety Board investigators said that after a simple engine flameout, the crew relied too long on autopilot to adjust the plane’s bearing. When the captain finally took over, the 220-ton aircraft rolled over into a six-mile nose dive that approached the speed of sound before control was regained 9,500 feet above the Pacific. The plane was extensively damaged and two people were seriously injured.

The NTSB noted that five days before the accident, the captain had flown through five time zones on a return from Saudi Arabia and then had flown several flights between Taiwan and Japan. While the report stopped short of blaming fatigue, board member John Lauber, a sleep scientist, believes it was a factor.

“You go through that whole sequence, and it’s strongly suggestive of a crew that wasn’t plugged in and who probably wasn’t plugged in because of sleepiness,” he said.

Fatigue may have been involved in other accidents as well, including the Sept. 25, 1978, collision between a Pacific Southwest 727 and a private plane in San Diego and the Oct. 31, 1979, crash of a Western Airlines DC-10 in Mexico City.

On the night before the PSA accident, which killed 146 people, the crew had barely seven hours off duty and likely slept no more than 5 1/2 hours. The next day, the pilot was heard saying on the cockpit tape: “I’m draggin’. It was a short night.”

The Western crash occurred at 5:30 a.m. when the DC-10, having flown about three hours from Los Angeles, landed on the wrong runway and hit a truck. Seventy-three people died.

Both accidents were blamed on pilot error. Experts say hard evidence rarely exists to show pilots erred because they were tired.

“The problem with fatigue is it’s not a bent piece of metal. It’s not a liquid that can be analyzed in the laboratory,” said Dr. Stanley Mohler, a former Federal Aviation Administration official who heads aerospace medicine at Wright State University.

Tales of Napping

Government and airline officials acknowledge they’ve heard tales of pilots napping in flight and of mistakes attributed to sleepiness, but they play down such reports.

“There isn’t evidence that there is a fatigue problem,” said Walt Coleman, spokesman for the Air Transport Assn., a trade group representing the major airlines.

T. Allan McArtor, FAA administrator, says more research is needed into the effects of long flights on the circadian system, or biological clock. But he denies there is a safety problem.

“There’s no evidence that shows it makes flying any more hazardous,” McArtor said.

About 600 accounts of missed approaches, near misses and near tragedies blamed on fatigue show up in voluntary pilot reports filed with the Air Safety Reporting System, an office run by NASA for pilots who want to confess to mistakes and report risky conditions without fear of retribution.

Enough reports were filed by crews for commuter airlines and air taxis that the ASRS sent a memo to the FAA in May identifying “recurring pilot deviations directly attributable to fatigue and cockpit workload.”

Wants More Study

“The big chunk that we have perceived out of this information is that fatigue is a real issue that needs to be addressed,” said Bill Reynard, who runs the reporting system.

Even though the reports are protected by anonymity and are not investigated by the ASRS, Reynard believes they are truthful.

“It is absolutely, positively valid that these numbers are real,” he said. “Our analysts have been in aviation for 20 to 30 years. They are very good at spotting a ringer.”

The reports provide a litany of horror stories:

- In February, 1987, the co-pilot of a cross-country jumbo jet already descending into Boston looked up from his coffee cup to see the captain asleep at the controls.

“I think we need to look at the world of the pilot and see what more hours and labor unrest is doing,” he wrote.

- The next month a large airliner from Los Angeles to Baltimore sank 4,000 feet below its assigned altitude, coming close enough to another plane to set off alarms at the air traffic control center.

“I do not believe it would have occurred to a rested crew,” wrote a crew member, noting he flew all night to Cleveland, then continued to Baltimore into the morning sun. “Duty regulations . . . do not in any way address the debilitating effects of flying all night and especially of continuing to work into the morning hours.”

- Last November the co-pilot of another large jet began a takeoff roll from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., without setting the flaps, an error then already suspected in the Northwest DC-9 crash in Detroit that had killed 154 people three months earlier.

Cockpit warning horns sounded and takeoff was aborted. In the Detroit crash, the horns failed to sound.

Finds Event Sobering

“It is quite sobering to consider that the combination of fatigue and distractions could so easily cause a breakdown in my own cockpit discipline,” wrote the co-pilot, who had flown for three days with little sleep.

“Complacency was not a factor,” he wrote. “Simple fatigue was the culprit.”

That incident affords a good look at the shadowy effects of fatigue. Planes don’t crash because pilots are tired, the experts say. Fatigue becomes a killer only when something else--equipment or the weather--goes wrong as well.

If, for example, the Fort Lauderdale flight’s warning horns had failed, as they did in Detroit, the tired pilot’s oversight could have been fatal. In the Detroit crash, there was no evidence fatigue played a role.

On paper, FAA flight rules seem favorable to pilots. Domestic pilots are limited to eight hours’ flight time a day; overseas pilots fly no more than 12. All pilots must get at least eight hours of rest between flight sequences.

However, the regulations count only scheduled flight time, not the hours spent on the ground between flights. So scheduled turnarounds and unscheduled delays can push a crew’s day up to 16 hours.

Concessions Are Commonplace

Scheduling agreements between airlines and pilots once kept flight hours well below federal standards, but concessions to management have become commonplace amid the fierce competition brought on by deregulation.

John Mazor, spokesman for the Air Line Pilots Assn., said that 10 years ago, at the start of deregulation, the typical contract limited flight time to a maximum of 75 to 80 hours per month. Today, he says, it’s 80 to 85 hours.

Continental pilots, who lost their contract when the company reorganized in 1983, now fly 20% more hours a month. The company says its flight hours are still well under the industry average.

“Our . . . work rules remove the anti-productivity aspects to allow reasonable productivity,” said spokesman Bruce Hicks.

Northwest pilots complain their company has interpreted regulations to allow international crews flying home to take on additional domestic flights, adding up to four flight hours to their day. Northwest, citing ongoing negotiations with the pilots, declined to comment.

Get Extra Work Day

When United Airlines acquired Pan American’s Pacific routes in 1986, its pilots faced extended flight hours and reduced crew size on the longer routes. A separate contract added a day of work each month.

“The Pan Am guys had a cushy job, but the company fell on hard times,” said John Ferg, United’s director of flight operations. “We’re trying to strike a balance between what’s fair and equitable for the pilots and what’s economical.”

Many pilots interviewed complain the scales are tipped too far toward economics at the expense of safety.

“I’ve got 400 people in that airplane, and I take it very seriously,” said a United 747 pilot. “It’s a responsibility, and you know this isn’t good for the passengers.”