UPS A300 down at Birmingham AL

MikeD said:
Risk management worksheets haave been standard practice in USAF units for over a decade now. Although their utility is questionable. I remember one flight one night in the A-10. The sheet worked on a point system, if your point totals came up above (at the time) 15 or so, it required you to be taken off the mission. Mine came to something like 17. The supervisor reviewed it and said "17? What can we omit here to make it an even 15 so you can fly; we dont have a backup pilot tonight and need the sorties." :)
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That's....sad. Granted, a piece of paper is just a piece of paper, but if you honestly have an out-of-regs ORM sheet, it usually requires some kind of mission change, limitation, crew change, or OG signoff.

I think one of the best parts about the large crew on a Herk is that no one ****s around with crew rest or risk management, because there are 5 other lives depending on you to perform.
 
Acrofox said:
As a completely random, non-scientific but directly experiential statement: I and many in my industry are nocturnal by nature. My absolute most normal schedule... the one that has me well rested, happy and feeling good ... is ~13-14:00 - 06-07:00.

Waking up at 07:00 every morning runs the risk of turning me into a zombie.

So .. these things aren't absolutes.

~Fox
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I'm more or less a bat as well. Hate mornings. I'll routinely go to bed between 2 and 4am, and roll out of bed 11-1300 if left to my own devices. I have to manage appropriately when doing flights in my normal sleeping hours (i.e. early am).
 
You can be taken aback all you want, and I am quite aware that there needs to be changes in the schedule.

If you have 8 hours behind the door after working and you don't mess around you should be able to get rest...not all of it sleep but enough rest to not be crashing airplanes. You know as well as I that we have people partying on overnights or wanting to do fun stuff rather than really try to rest and that is a problem.

How many schedules at Colgan/SkyWest/ExpressJet/ASA or any others are off 0800-1600 then on all night...come on dude, let's not get hyperbolic. We know the schedules aren't great, but they aren't what you represented above.

When you accept no responsibility for your side of the problem it makes it more difficult to come to agreement or even with a solution that is correct.


I've had my schedule moved around pretty severely...more than at a regional, and when I saw it coming, I started modifying my sleep before the change ever came up so I would be somewhat acclimated.

Matter of fact, I've been on 14 hour days flying two missions a day in much more challenging environments for the last 10 days...I want to go have a beer with the guys, but this mission doesn't allow it. I have to be certain I get my rest, so I do...

There is the company side of the responsibility and there is the professionals side of the responsibility. All you ever talk about is the companies responsibility...how about some self analysis and disclosure?

That's what pro standards is about...to use peer pressure to modify unprofessional behavior.

I think you of all people should know that.
 
etflies said:
That's all well and good until you get an AM 4 day followed by a stand up the day after your 4 day then 2 days off and then a PM trip, then back to AM flying the next trip. Nobody can adjust their body/CR to a schedule like that, and nobody in their right mind bids for crap like that but when you don't have the seniority for something more consistent what do you expect?

Its easy to tout responsibility until you consider the reality of some schedules. Heaven forbid a pilot have a life outside of work anyway.
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this is where the company responsibility need to be addressed, and I agree.

As far as if you flight night time cargo, there are people who worked their whole lives on graveyards...that's the gig you took. If you want to play in the daytime, then you need to figure out how to be rested. Sorry. Doesn't your schedule allow for many days off in a row? Use those days to switch back and forth, not the work days. That's the gig...there is a line 10000 people long to take it.
 
I find myself much more fatigued when I'm trying to maintain a "normal" sleep schedule, getting to work at 9am and off at 7pm. I try to do 8am to midnight hours, but the body clock routinely wants 1200 to 0300. Hasn't helped that since getting back from the honeymoon I've had a very light workload and very little reason to show up at 9am, and since set my own schedule I've been showing at work at 11am. I have two days of all day meetings this week starting at 8am. And here I thought I'd finally be free of the Melatonin supplements, I'd managed to do most of the summer without them.
 
Only speaking to the fatigue portion and doing so from the quasi outside, fatigue is an evil thing. I thought the fatigue angle was apropos when I was trying to get myself to a sleep state last afternoon. Work 8 off 8 work 8 is fatiguing enough. 8 hours off after a 16 hour duty day (am I saying it right?) is insane. I remember when they fired about 5 controllers in quick succession because they fell asleep running a work 8 off 8 work 8 off 8 work 8 schedule, ie "the rattler". I thought I could handle the rattler like a big boy up until the day I drove to a place I hadn't lived in 3 years and had very little memory of actually having left work.

You can say do the professional thing and just shut out the sun all you want, but life happens. You can say well this is how we did it in the military, but this flight wasn't the military. Nobody was sacrificed for a national security reason and changing circadian rhythms is a dangerous thing. If the pilots in the free market view signed up for working the back side of the clock, and obviously they did, so be it. That doesn't justify their deaths.
 
There has to be some line in the sand, though. Like the Colgan FO commuting from Seattle to JFK ... c'mon, I get not being able to live in NYC, but surely there's some place cheaper one can live in between the two coasts.
 
Murdoughnut said:
There has to be some line in the sand, though. Like the Colgan FO commuting from Seattle to JFK ... c'mon, I get not being able to live in NYC, but surely there's some place cheaper one can live in between the two coasts.
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It's the vacation destination known as Albany!
 
Autothrust Blue said:
Uh...right. See above.
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It was intended to be in relation to backside of the clock stuff. Regionals don't exactly do that as often as freight. When I tell people here at XJT what my AMF schedule was they always get a look of disgust. It was bad.

Yes regional pilots get fatigued. It is just interesting watching regional guys think an overnight schedule is something easy to do. Sure I can shift my sleep schedule, the problem is that I want to have a life outside of work and go to places other than dennies or the waffle house for food/entertainment. The sleep schedule swapping sucks.
 
Did I miss something? Is fatigue being discussed in generalities because the crash was at night, or is it specific to some information released with this crash?
 
gne in prog said:
Did I miss something? Is fatigue being discussed in generalities because the crash was at night, or is it specific to some information released with this crash?
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Rarely should we expect the posts/discussions within a thread to actually be jermaine to the thread. It's what we seem to do around here.....
 
gne in prog said:
Did I miss something? Is fatigue being discussed in generalities because the crash was at night, or is it specific to some information released with this crash?
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Scroll back a few pages. It was brought up by some posters and very well could be a factor in the accident. The whole cargo rest rule cutout and such was also discussed a little.
 
Hacker15e said:
How did we ever safely fly airplanes in the USAF without ORM sheets?!
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Point being, it's a documentable way for a crew to substantiate unnecessary risk.

Overseas, you got the mission done. Flying high-risk training sorties on a weekday night in the States isn't always worth it.
 
Maurus said:
It was intended to be in relation to backside of the clock stuff. Regionals don't exactly do that as often as freight. When I tell people here at XJT what my AMF schedule was they always get a look of disgust. It was bad.
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Of course.

Yes regional pilots get fatigued. It is just interesting watching regional guys think an overnight schedule is something easy to do. Sure I can shift my sleep schedule, the problem is that I want to have a life outside of work and go to places other than dennies or the waffle house for food/entertainment. The sleep schedule swapping sucks.
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No way. I dread CDOs, which is as close as we get.
 
I'll say this. Having an 8 pm show and getting off by 6pm Monday night through Saturday morning. Then having a 6am show and getting off by 3pm on Sunday. And going back to the 8pm show on Monday night is a butt kicker!
 
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