Could your pilot be drunk, overtired etc. are the present regulations enough?
An airline pilot caught this week in Amsterdam for being over the legal alcohol limit just before takeoff highlights an issue among U.S. pilots that occurs once a month on average, government data show.
The case of the unidentified Delta Air Lines captain renews a long-standing debate about whether the federal blood-alcohol limit for pilots — .04% — is adequate to protect safety. In most states, the legal limit for driving is .08%.
About 12 commercial pilots are found to violate the FAA standard each year, according to agency data. That's a small fraction of the more than 11,000 who are tested yearly.
The Colgan captain, who lived in Florida, had spent the night before the crash in the airline's crew room at Newark, a place not suited to sleeping. The co-pilot, who lived in Seattle, had taken two cargo flights overnight to Newark and had grabbed some sleep in the crew room, too. Both died with everyone else on the plane.
While the National Transportation Safety Board didn't cite exhaustion as a formal cause of the Buffalo crash, it found that the pilots' performance was likely impaired by fatigue. Lack of rest has been a factor in several crashes since 1997, in which 249 people died, and in many incidents where, perhaps only through luck, no one was killed. On one commuter flight over Hawaii in 2008, the crew overshot its destination because the pilots were asleep.
Most passengers have no idea that pilots are allowed to work 16-hour days, and sometimes longer. Or that it doesn't matter whether they're flying a grueling schedule that runs through the night or requires repeated takeoffs and landings. Or that pilots are expected to get to a hotel, sleep, eat, dress and get back to work — all within their required eight-hour rest periods.
The FAA failed to fully address one of the most contentious issues contributing to fatigue: pilot commutes. Pilots can fly for free, and many commute long distance to their home bases. It's a job perk for some, a necessity for others, particularly regional airline pilots whose bases frequently change and whose low salaries can make it tough to live near big cities. The FAA skirted a common-sense starting point — long sought by the NTSB— of explicitly requiring airlines to keep records of which pilots commute and from where.
Links:
http://www.usatoday.com/travel/flights/2010-09-16-drunkpilots16rw_ST_N.htm
http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2010-09-17-editorial17_ST_N.htm