Bipin Shah   Self Employed
MUMBAI: While the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has made it mandatory for flight attendants to check on pilots during lean-activity periods in the cockpit to prevent the flying crew from falling asleep at the controls, the country's aviation regulator is yet to issue scientifically backed pilot rest rules despite the rising instances of fatigue-related air crashes the world over.

The International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) had set a 2009 deadline for adopting scientifically backed pilot rest rules, but India-despite being a signatory-is yet to comply. The country's air carriers currently follow rest rules framed way back in 1992, a time when the concept of fatigue-management to reduce air crashes was relatively unheard of.

The fatigue-element was factored into the 1992 rest rules to a small extent on the basis of lessons learnt from earlier crashes-like the October 12, 1976, crash of Bombay-Madras Indian Airlines flight. The Caravelle aircraft caught fire on take off and the fatigued commander-who had flown a Boeing aircraft in the morning, attended office work through the day and operated the late-night flight to Madras-failed to take the corrective action, which led to 95 deaths.

Sixteen years and about eight air crashes later, the country saw new pilot rest rules in 1992. Sixteen years later in 2008, the DGCA put in force scientifically backed rest rules (written in 2007) as by then the global airline industry had registered fatigue's ever-increasing role in air crashes. But within a month after it was issued, the regulator bowed down to pressure from airlines (for one, the new rules meant more rest period and so more pilots per aircraft) and withdrew it to bring back the 1992 rest rules. It means currently the country's airlines roster their pilots based on rules which have no benefit of air safety lessons-on fatigue and its link to air crashes-learnt by the airline industry from 1992 onwards.

What does it mean to follow pilot rest rules that are close to two decades old? For one, it means scheduling pilots for duty the way airlines in other parts of the world did in the '60s and '70s. For instance, an Indian carrier can continuously roster a pilot for flights operated during circadian low periods. It means a pilot can be given, say a 5.30 am departure any time in a row. In most countries, a pilot can be rostered on circadian-low flights only twice in a row. The third time, s/he would be put say, on a 8.30 am flight- basically, a flight which does not interrupt with night sleep.

The other outcome of following rusty rest rules comes in the form of various dispensations that the DGCA has to give to suit the current operations environment. There were no 15-16 hour ultra-long haul flights in 1992 and so those rest rules do not cover such operations. Another shortcoming is that the 1992 rest rules do not account for travel before a flight (as additional crew member) and after a flight-both of which are now factored in in pilot fatigue studies. Scientific studies have shown that the performance levels and response times degrade with "time since awake''.

Fatal air crashes where fatigue played a prominent role continue to go up. Only last week, the president of Pakistan Air Lines Pilots Association, Captain Sohail Baloch, said the Margalla Hills Air Blue A320 crash might be attributed to pilots' fatigue. "The pilot may be suffering from accumulated fatigue because they are not given adequate leaves,'' he told a private news channel.
Aug 7th 2010 08:26