Air scare: Sleepy pilot may be flying you

3 Jun 2008, 0120 hrs
MUMBAI: They may have the best inflight service possible, attractive air fares and a great on-time performance record to top it all. But behind those cockpit doors, your airline may have rostered a set of fatigued pilots who have to try hard enough to keep their eyes open.

Research has pointed out that cockpit crew fatigue is the major contributory factor for 70% of air crashes and, for the last two days, airlines in India have been flying without any pilot rest rules in place.

"The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) kept the new pilot rest rules, introduced last year, in abeyance two days ago. The old rest rules was scrapped last year and so right now, there are no rules for cockpit crew rest time period in India," said a senior commander.

What it means is that your airline can, without breaking any rules, ask a pilot who landed an aircraft at 11pm to wake-up early and operate another flight at 5am. Last year, in August, India scrapped its decades-old pilot rest rules and introduced a new one that was being followed in countries like the UK, the US and Australia.

The new Flight Duty Time and Flight Time Limitations (FDTL) took into account research done by Nasa and other organisations on circadian rhythms (sleep/wa-ke cycle), reaction of altitude changes on human body, etc. After much effort, the DGCA got all airlines in India to implement it. Carriers now needed 20% more pilots as they had to give more rest to pilots between flights, give more rest to pilots operating at night, etc.

"There has been strong pressure from some quarters of the airline industry to repeal this new FDTL and now they have finally managed to get it suspended for the moment," said a senior commander.

As of now, the DGCA has constituted a committee - the names of the members has not been made public - to review the new FDTL.

The country's pilots body (of the merged Air India and Jet Airways) has protested the abeyance of the new FDTL. In a letter to the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) and international pilot insurance companies, the protesters have pointed out that a P C Sen committee formed in 1998-90 to evaluate crew fatigue had concluded that such studies "are specialised in nature and is best left to aviation medical specialists only".