Originally Posted by
YEG_SE4Life
A couple of questions come to mind:
1) And I would really like to know if there is an answer to this, because it would help me in my industry. How do you control what an employee does off work? Should they make a policy which bans pilots with young families from going on reserve?
2) Did fatigue also factor into the Delta pilots lining up for the taxiway? If so, does that mean that the US regulations are also too lax?
Believe me, I want whatever causes are found to have contributed to this, solved. It is no more important to anyone, than it is to me. I just think that they (the airline, the airport, and the regulators) should look at the multitude of factors, in determining what changes to implement.
1. Its an interesting question, because it applies to any type of impairment. If a pilot shows up drunk, they can be terminated. It should be the same for fatigue. Put punitive penalties into place for pilots who show up for a flight, operate it, and then exit the plane so exhausted they evidently can't make a phone call to report a fatigue-related incident, with direct adverse consequences for the subsequent investigation. I don't think it's complicated, partly because this doesn't seem to be a recurring theme with other airlines. What do they do?
2. Fatigue-related impairment can result in delayed actions. DL appears to have realized it's error much earlier. AC misalignment would probably have been a much less publicized issue if they recognized their error earlier and corrected/cleared the taxiway with a much wider safety margin instead of taking it as close as they did. That seems to be a big part of the report.
At the end of the day, virtually every developed aviation jurisdiction (and many developing ones) have stronger pilot fatigue regulations than whatever TC and AC are doing. Which begs lots of question:
Are the FAA, NTSB, NASA etc just chumps or do they actually know what they're doing and why they're doing it? Did they just make up those rules for kicks and giggles? Does AC really know better than them? Is it possible that TC/AC are putting economic considerations ahead of safety, as the NTSB vice chairman openly suggested?
While it is important to look at all factors, is there an excuse for delaying quick action on the low-hanging fruit here (pilot fatigue), given that multiple jurisdictions have expended significant effort into understanding this issue and addressing it? I''m not convinced. The only reason not to follow the global trend here appears, to me, to be financial.