Pilots fear fatigue, question rest rules

Mumbai: Does India make its pilots work longer than the US or the UK? Yes, it seems, if reports submitted by two pilots' groups are to be believed.
A year after the May 22 Mangalore air crash killed 158 people, a lot remains to be done to mitigate pilot fatigue. The Flight and Duty Time Limitation (FDTL), rules which govern work-rest schedule for pilots, currently followed in India were formulated way back in 1992.
The International Civil Aviation Organisation called for scientifically-backed FDTL a few years ago, but the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) came up with a new draft FDTL, only in March this year. However, reports submitted by some pilots bodies claim that the new draft, called Civil Aviation Requirement 7 (CAR 7), actually reduces pilot rest period in some cases.
Fatigue-study is a complicated issue involving a number of factors like geographic location of the country, its climatology, social and genetic factors, circadian rhythms etc. Across the world, the trend has been to increase the rest hours or rather structure the duty hours in such a way that cockpit crew fatigue is kept under check to as much extent as possible.
In its submission to the DGCA, the Indian Pilots Guild, the union of Air India pilots, gave an example to point out how the pilots will be a more tired lot under the new Indian rules. It said if the Flight Duty Time (this includes flying time, plus time spent on the ground) to operate a Mumbai-London flight was 11.20 hours then under the new draft CAR, a pilot operating a Mumbai-London flight will get only 14 hours of rest. The current rules allow for 19.10 hours of rest.
21/05/11 Manju V/Times of India

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Categories: Indian Aviation- In General May 2011, Safety May 2011