Contending that doubling staffing during midnight shifts at some control towers “barely scratch[es] the surface” in combating controller fatigue, National Air Traffic Controllers Association President Paul Rinaldi wants the Federal Aviation Administration to do more.
Specifically NATCA wants FAA to pay attention to a dozen recommendations born of a joint NATCA-FAA working group. It took a year-and-a-half for the groups to come up with a comprehensive plan to ensure controllers stay alert and don’t fall asleep on the job. In the past two weeks the FAA has fired three controllers for falling asleep while on duty.
Rinaldi maintains, “If we are serious about addressing controller fatigue, then every recommendation must be adopted and implemented.”
One of them already has. The FAA boosted the time between the second evening shift – the ‘midnight shift’ – and the first day shift by an hour. Controllers will now have nine hours off instead of eight.
Cheapflights has obtained a list of other recommendations from NATCA. In synopsized form, here are some of the key suggestions:
- Introduce a “recuperative break” during a controller’s shift, one that “can mitigate the risk of reduced cognitive performance due to fatigue.” CNN reported that National Transportation Safety Board member Mark Rosekind said a NASA study shows “A 26-minute nap improved performance 34 percent and alertness 54 percent.”
- Trim the day shift preceding the first midnight shift from eight to seven hours – then begin that midnight shift an hour later. The goal: “more restorative sleep at the end of the nighttime sleep period.”
- Get a better handle on sleep disorders among controllers by creating “policies and procedures that encourage self-initiating evaluation, diagnosis and demonstration of initial treatment effectiveness.”
- Help controllers better understand what their responsibilities are to minimize fatigue, and let them know what they should do when they feel too sleepy to safely perform their duties.
- Better educate FAA managers about fatigue, emphasizing non-punitive approaches to the problem when a controller has followed policy and still considers themselves too fatigued to safely perform their duties.
- Update existing fatigue awareness training to better reflect the current science on this critical subject, then “personalize” the program so controllers can better fight fatigue.
- Design a Fatigue Rick Management System, or FRMS, to identify, analyze and mitigate fatigue.
To help implement this, NATCA’s Rinaldi wants Congress to finally pass the FAA Reauthorization bill. That piece of legislation is now in its 18th extension. According to Rinaldi, “This legislation includes a number of provisions addressing fatigue.”
None of this means the sky is falling. NATCA, which in the past has often been at odds with the FAA, says the system is safe. “Here’s the bottom line,” says the NATCA chief: “It’s safe to fly. It has never been safer to fly.” NTSB counted no fatal commercial aviation accidents in this country in 2010. Not one.
Consider the content. Rinaldi says, “Air traffic controllers safely oversee 70,000 flights a day.” He contends they run “the most efficient National Airspace System in the World. You are safer riding on an airplane in this country than riding an escalator.”
Story by Jerry Chandler
(Image: Kecko)
