24 | F Australia, city pair, on same the which HUMAN (FRMSs) “mirror pillars the of safety Today, fatigue risk management systems , –Brisbane, Flight Safety Foundation’s annual 64th International Air Safety (IASS) Seminar cally identify links between measured between links identify cally in Singapore inNovember. is “particularly hard to do,” he told that discussing an FRMSis while easy focused on two-crewfocused for flights the management systems,” says David Pow actually implementingactually elements the all . Nevertheless, are finding ell, aviation for medicine specialist the levels of fatigue and safety indicators. A few years ago, acompany study flight attendantsflight during op flight erations and attempted to scientifi or about 15years, Air New Zealand periodically assessed pilots assessed and periodically FACTORS - - - … [Objective] reaction data time and the 300/ A320]doesn’t make any [pilots’ self-reported] subjective data tend Brisbane makes abig difference. Reaction Equally valuable,Equally he said, confir has been details of pattern the to mitigate fatigue. difference, but providing anight stop in done around world,” the Powell said. rived back at Christchurch at about 0700 the followingthe day. “It of is sort the duty the timingthe of departures, crewing level or to same the tell story.” exactly From such tests], compared with that of inall our [ontime psychomotor in-flight vigilance mation by of types data both that fatigue situationsflagged requiring changes in pilots from departed Christchurch studies, predictive analyses have red- studies, was quite towards high end. the between 2100 and 2200 local time and time 2100and arbetween 2200local “Changing aircraft the 737- [ Scheduling Evolving fatigueriskmanagementsystemsincrease Scientific Scientific two airlines’confidenceaboutalertness. - - FLIGHT FOUNDATION SAFETY 30 minutes before safety-critical the top within an acceptable range, but starting was that starting duty from morning to 9,000 paper-form responses represented company to require top-of-descent alert duty evening inthe or of middle the increase quickly toward an unacceptable this “wealththis of data” convinced then the nightthe could cause fatigue levels to tions. One finding for regional trips tions are sufficiently accurate. ness ratings 777pilot from eachBoeing midday fatigue kept level well peak the for three months of benefits the pilots on the flight deck on every flight. on deck on flight the every of In flight. descent phaseall, on every level. Ability to isolate risk factors within long-haul, regional and domestic opera levels are reasonable and fatigue predic self-reporting fatigue their level about The company recently monitored BY WAYNE ROSENKRANS |

AEROSAFETY WORLD | FEBRUARY 2012 - - -

© Chris Sorensen Photography HUMANFACTORS

Using the Samn-Perelli alertness scale “In terms of making the call on what with Helsinki University to study crew of 1 to 7 (Figure 1), flight crews reported is safe enough, we have got a long way to fatigue levels on long-range flights, and a higher fatigue level on the return sectors go,” Powell said. “There are not enough in 2008, the researchers expanded data of out-and-back, daylight flights from data out there on fatigue linking with collection to narrowbody aircraft. , New Zealand, to Melbourne, safety, so I’m here to appeal for [research “In 2008, we asked, ‘What are the Australia, for the 0800 local time depar- on safety metrics].” A promising avenue possibilities of introducing a fatigue ture compared with similar-duration of inquiry is how some crews with a model to actually influence the con- flights at different departure times. high fatigue level or restricted sleep can struction of the schedules from the very “There is probably a little bit of trunca- perform tasks in a flight simulator or beginning, rather than just measuring tion of [pilots’] sleep,” Powell explained. line operations safety audit as effectively fatigue after the process is completed? Another finding, from a three-crew as well-rested crews, or can exhibit fewer Could [we] influence those sequences variant of this flight, was that “the benefit — but more serious — recorded exceed- of flights to end up in the best possible of a third pilot for a daylight sector is less ances of normal flight parameters. context?’” Klemets said. This work led obvious [than assumed],” he said. to the design and early 2011 launch of Powell told IASS attendees, “You Crew Vulnerability an Apple iPhone application (app) for can monitor fatigue across your entire Tomas Klemets, head of scheduling building alertness into crew schedul- operation easily and cheaply [together] safety, Jeppesen Systems, described to ing, developed with design input from with your flight data analysis programs.” IASS attendees Finnair’s early experi- company pilots. Airlines should expect to frequently en- ence with its evolving, incomplete “Finnair pilots actually fly rosters that courage crewmembers to keep up their FRMS in a presentation co-authored have been produced … using a fatigue in-flight ratings over time; find ways to with Gabriela Hiitola, the airline’s head model guiding the overall construction,” gauge FRMS effectiveness in relation of crew scheduling. Finnair operates he said. Each “planning horizon” is con- to measures in international guidance; widebody jets connecting Europe with tinually revisited and refined from the and produce validated, reliable mea- long-range destinations in via Hel- long-term planning stage to the day of sures of safety performance. sinki. In 2007, the airline began to work operation under the FRMS, he added. Some risk factors are inherently Two-Crew Fatigue at Top of Descent tough to mitigate, however. “When an airline decides to operate to a certain 6 Duty time (hours) station with certain equipment at a cer- 10.5 9.0 tain departure time, that will inevitably 7.5 5 6.0 lead to a certain level of fatigue that will 4.5 3.0 be very difficult to avoid,” Klemets said. 4 Pairing construction, roster construc- tion by automated optimizers and FRMS monitoring have far less influence in 3 those situations, he said. The airline also has added scheduler Samn-Perelli Scale (7-point) 2 and pilot training on key performance indicators (KPIs) of safety. “What Finnair 1 does today is to trend what we call the 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 PA5, the average predicted level of alert- Time of day (hour) ness on the 5-percent ‘worst’ flights,” he Notes: The earliest research using pilot self-assessment on paper forms before top of descent, during said. For any dramatic improvement, two-crew regional operations, enabled Air New Zealand to derive trend curves based on duty start time and approximate duty duration. Higher values on the vertical scale mean greater fatigue. however, the airline “would need to relax

Source: David Powell, Air New Zealand or remove some [regulatory/contractual] constraints or sacrifice some other KPIs,” Figure 1 Klemets added.

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