Mumbai: India will have new rest rules for its pilots next month and these are supposed to be based on scientific and medical research done on fatigue.
In response to an air crash in 2009, the United States formulated new rest rules for its pilots. These were based on scientific findings. Strangely, the rest rules for Indian and American pilots vary greatly.
For instance: the American civil aviation regulator has mandated that eight hours of flying is the maximum its pilots should do at night as fatigue sets in after that point.
In India, according to the new rules, pilots do not get fatigued till they have completed 10 hours of flying during the night. What is worse, if the flight is delayed for some reason, the new rule says that pilot has to "consult" the airline's director of operations - and not director of flight safety - and then decide if his flying hour can be extended by another hour and a half.
This should be done by deciding whether at the end of the 11 and a half hour flying time, his or her levels of fatigue will be critical to passenger's safety. How can fatigue be quantified or pre-empted by a pilot or a director is nowhere mentioned in the rule book.
14/01/12 V Manju/Times of India
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