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Commuter plane crash sheds light on pilot fatigue issue
Associated Press
KANSAS CITY, Mo. - The crash of a commuter plane in northeast Missouri last week, killing 13 of the 15 people on board, has focused new attention on the length of time pilots are allowed to work on a given day.
The Corporate Airlines plane crashed Oct. 19 on a flight from St. Louis to the northeast Missouri community of Kirksville. It was the sixth flight of the day for pilots Kim Sasse, 48, of Ramsey, N.J., and Jonathan Palmer, 29, of Cincinnati, who died with 11 of their 13 passengers. The two pilots had been on duty for 14 hours 41 minutes, within Federal Aviation Administration guidlines, when Flight 5966 crashed on aproach to the Kirksville airport.
The cause of the crash remains under investigation, and there has been no immediate indication that pilot fatigue played a role. But Corporate Airlines pilots have been talking for months about joining a union, partly because of concern over long hours, a Teamsters official said. "That is one of the issues," Don Treichler, airline division manager for the
Teamsters, told The Kansas City Star. "It has to do with the amount of rest they get, the hours they work, the repetitiveness of the schedule."
FAA regulations now allow flight duty of from 16 hours to 12 hours for pilots, depending on the departure time of their flights. As long ago as 1995 the agency proposed reducing those limits, dropping the maximum time of continuous duty to 14 hours, but the parties couldn't agree and no change
has been made.
Three years ago an FAA study found that a tired pilot is two to four times more likely to have an accident, and critics, including Jim Hall, a former chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, say a change in the
regulations is long overdue.
"The FAA continues to be a no-show on this issue," said Hall, "It's probably the No. 1 hazard that we have not effectively addressed in all forms of transportation."
"We put in place programs to address alcohol and drugs, yet we leave fatigue hanging out there with nothing done," Hall said. "It's not something we can say we don't have the information to do something about. The information
exists, and lives are being lost because we are failing to take action."
"There is no question that pilot fatigue is present in our commercial airline operations," Capt. Duane W. Woerth, president of the Air Line Pilots Assocation, told a House subcommittee in 1999. John Mazor, spokesman for the
association, said the group supports a 12-hour maximum for pilots.
"The effects of a long duty day are real," he said. "Fifteen, 16 hours is a very grueling work schedule for anybody. But if you're performing a complex function such as flying an airplane, the effect on performance are even more critical."
Mazor pointed to the "subtle effects" of fatigue.
"If you look at enough accident investigations, very frequently you'll come to a point where you say, why did the pilot do that, or why didn't they do this, when they were supposed to?" he said. "You can't assume that they were
all just so grossly incompetent that they failed to do something that any pilot should have done without thinking."
FAA officials said the restrictions were unchanged because no one could agree on the proposals.
"There was never any consensus on it," said Elizabeth Isham Cory, an FAA spokeswoman. "We asked for comment, and the comments were all over the board. The industry is not giving us much direction, either. So basically, the regulations still stand."
Most of the more than 2,000 comments about the 1995 proposal opposed it, the FAA said.
Diana Cronan, a spokeswoman for the Air Transportation Association, said many of the carriers go beyond the FAA guidelines on flight-duty time.
"They've become even more stringent than what the FAA has put in place," she said. Brannan Atkinson, spokesman for Corporate Airlines, which is based in Smyrna, Tenn., said the possibility of pilot fatigue being a factor in the Kirksville crash was "pure speculation." He also wouldn't speculate on why
the company's approximately 60 pilots were exploring union affiliation.
"Like any company, we work really hard to provide our employees, including pilots, with competitive benefits and wages," Atkinson said. "At the same time, we absolutely support the right of the pilots to say 'yes' to unionization or also to say 'no.'"
A spokesman for the National Transportation Safety Board, Keith Holloway, said the possibility of pilot fatigue would be one of the issues examined in an investigation that could last months.
---
Information from: The Kansas City Star
Associated Press
KANSAS CITY, Mo. - The crash of a commuter plane in northeast Missouri last week, killing 13 of the 15 people on board, has focused new attention on the length of time pilots are allowed to work on a given day.
The Corporate Airlines plane crashed Oct. 19 on a flight from St. Louis to the northeast Missouri community of Kirksville. It was the sixth flight of the day for pilots Kim Sasse, 48, of Ramsey, N.J., and Jonathan Palmer, 29, of Cincinnati, who died with 11 of their 13 passengers. The two pilots had been on duty for 14 hours 41 minutes, within Federal Aviation Administration guidlines, when Flight 5966 crashed on aproach to the Kirksville airport.
The cause of the crash remains under investigation, and there has been no immediate indication that pilot fatigue played a role. But Corporate Airlines pilots have been talking for months about joining a union, partly because of concern over long hours, a Teamsters official said. "That is one of the issues," Don Treichler, airline division manager for the
Teamsters, told The Kansas City Star. "It has to do with the amount of rest they get, the hours they work, the repetitiveness of the schedule."
FAA regulations now allow flight duty of from 16 hours to 12 hours for pilots, depending on the departure time of their flights. As long ago as 1995 the agency proposed reducing those limits, dropping the maximum time of continuous duty to 14 hours, but the parties couldn't agree and no change
has been made.
Three years ago an FAA study found that a tired pilot is two to four times more likely to have an accident, and critics, including Jim Hall, a former chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, say a change in the
regulations is long overdue.
"The FAA continues to be a no-show on this issue," said Hall, "It's probably the No. 1 hazard that we have not effectively addressed in all forms of transportation."
"We put in place programs to address alcohol and drugs, yet we leave fatigue hanging out there with nothing done," Hall said. "It's not something we can say we don't have the information to do something about. The information
exists, and lives are being lost because we are failing to take action."
"There is no question that pilot fatigue is present in our commercial airline operations," Capt. Duane W. Woerth, president of the Air Line Pilots Assocation, told a House subcommittee in 1999. John Mazor, spokesman for the
association, said the group supports a 12-hour maximum for pilots.
"The effects of a long duty day are real," he said. "Fifteen, 16 hours is a very grueling work schedule for anybody. But if you're performing a complex function such as flying an airplane, the effect on performance are even more critical."
Mazor pointed to the "subtle effects" of fatigue.
"If you look at enough accident investigations, very frequently you'll come to a point where you say, why did the pilot do that, or why didn't they do this, when they were supposed to?" he said. "You can't assume that they were
all just so grossly incompetent that they failed to do something that any pilot should have done without thinking."
FAA officials said the restrictions were unchanged because no one could agree on the proposals.
"There was never any consensus on it," said Elizabeth Isham Cory, an FAA spokeswoman. "We asked for comment, and the comments were all over the board. The industry is not giving us much direction, either. So basically, the regulations still stand."
Most of the more than 2,000 comments about the 1995 proposal opposed it, the FAA said.
Diana Cronan, a spokeswoman for the Air Transportation Association, said many of the carriers go beyond the FAA guidelines on flight-duty time.
"They've become even more stringent than what the FAA has put in place," she said. Brannan Atkinson, spokesman for Corporate Airlines, which is based in Smyrna, Tenn., said the possibility of pilot fatigue being a factor in the Kirksville crash was "pure speculation." He also wouldn't speculate on why
the company's approximately 60 pilots were exploring union affiliation.
"Like any company, we work really hard to provide our employees, including pilots, with competitive benefits and wages," Atkinson said. "At the same time, we absolutely support the right of the pilots to say 'yes' to unionization or also to say 'no.'"
A spokesman for the National Transportation Safety Board, Keith Holloway, said the possibility of pilot fatigue would be one of the issues examined in an investigation that could last months.
---
Information from: The Kansas City Star
