Do the FAA’s new pilot fatigue rules fulfill Secretary LaHood’s promise to the traveling public?

Just last month, the US Department of Transportation and the Federal Aviation Administration announced their new “final” rules to keep fatigued pilots out of the cockpit. The new rules govern how much time off commercial passenger pilots must have between work shifts, how much time within their time off, pilots must have to be able to sleep, as well as set pilot flight time limits.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has said of the new rules, “This is a major safety achievement. We made a promise to the traveling public that we would do everything possible to make sure pilots are rested when they get in the cockpit. This new rule raises the safety bar to prevent fatigue.”

While it appears to be true that the new rules raise the safety bar, do they actually fulfill the promise to “do everything possible” to make sure pilots are rested when they fly the traveling public?

Let me take you back almost two years ago. Colgan Air flight 3407, flying in from Newark’s Liberty International Airport to Buffalo Niagara International Airport was coming in to land on an ILS approach to the airport. The Bombardier DHC8–402 Q400 stalled less than a mile from the locator outer marker, and crashed into a house in the Buffalo suburb or Clarence Center, New York. It was less than six miles from the runway.

Fifty people died in the crash. No one on the plane survived; two pilots, two flight attendants, 45 passengers, and one person who was in the house into which the plane crashed. Three others on the ground, two in the house, were injured from the crash.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) determined the probable cause of the accident was pilot error and listed several contributing factors.

Among the contributing factors was fatigue, according to the NTSB which stated,

“The pilots’ performance was likely impaired because of fatigue, but the extent of their impairment and the degree to which it contributed to the performance deficiencies that occurred during the flight cannot be conclusively determined.”

It was this crash which prompted Secretary LaHood to make his promise to the traveling public and the families of the passengers and crew of flight 3407.

The new rules, which supersede rules developed more than 40 years ago, require:

• Flight-duty times range from nine to 14 hours. The new rules, for the first time, not only count flight time and rest time, but also the time spent flying to the job, sometimes called dead-heading, just as if the pilot was at work.

• Flight-time limits will be eight to nine hours, depending on the time of day and number of flights flown.

• Minimum rest periods now will be 10 hours between shifts, plus pilots must have an opportunity for eight hours of uninterrupted sleep during the rest period.

• Pilots must have 30 consecutive hours of rest each week, which is a 25% increase over current standards.

The rules sound good, but are they?

The first problem with the rules is the FAA decided not to apply the rules to cargo plane pilots, because of the costs to that industry, according to FAA Acting Administrator Michael Huerta. Air cargo carriers have the choice to “opt-in” to the rules, or ignore them.

While Mike Mangeot, spokesperson for United Parcel Service (UPS), thanked the FAA for recognizing that rules should differ between cargo and commercial carriers, saying, “One size has never fit all when it comes to crew rest regulations,” Robert Travis, president of the Independent Pilots Association, the union for United Parcel Service, was outraged by the exemption.

Travis said, “Giving air cargo carriers the choice to ‘opt-in’ to new pilot rest rules makes as much sense as allowing truckers to ‘opt-out’ of drunk-driving laws.”

Those are strong words, but perhaps Secretary LaHood, Administrator Huerta, and others in authority at the FAA, along with UPS spokesperson Mangeot forgot about dead and injured on the ground from the Colgan Air crash, and all the folks living near airports who are in flight paths, who are in danger from airplane crashes, whether they carry people or cargo.

In announcing the new rules, Secretary LaHood said the changes were based on the latest scientific sleep research, yet John Nance, a former Air Force and airline pilot, now an air transportation consultant for ABC News, called them “abysmal.”

Nance said, “I’m very distressed over these rules because they don’t go anywhere near far enough and they bear the earmarks of having listened to the whining of the airline industry. We have needed comprehensive change in our duty time controls for fatigue for long time and this just ignores about 25 years of research.”

Part of the problem which distresses Nance is the new rules don’t specifically address pilots use of crash pads and crew lounges, for example, to sleep before flights. An investigation last February revealed commuting pilots across the country were struggling to get even a little sleep in these spaces, before flying their commercial aircraft sometimes with hundreds aboard. The investigation showed pilots sleeping in chairs and on sofas. You really don’t get a decent rest in those conditions.

I call on Secretary LaHood to reconsider these “final” rules, improve them, and continue to monitor the fatigue problem, to see if even more stringent requirements might be needed, then perhaps, his promise will be fulfilled.