An accident involving a Flydubai plane was inevitable, a former Flydubai captain told RT on condition of anonymity. He revealed that pilots are forced to work while exhausted, while saying he had been “worked to death” despite complaints.
Speaking to RT in Doha, the former pilot said Flydubai’s top management was aware of the issue, but had done nothing to resolve it. “When I was still at the company, one of the last things I told management is that there would be an accident because of pilot fatigue,” he said.
The reason for fatigue is simple – pilots are being repeatedly overworked and not given enough time to sleep between flights.
The whistleblower provided documents showing that pilots, junior pilots in particular, are being assigned multiple flight shifts in a row. He argued that the crew often does not have enough time for sleep readjustment.
“Everybody at the company has these dangerous shifts from day flight to night flight, and then back to a day flight, and then back to a night flight, and it has definitely been a big issue for a long time.”
The former captain added he was sure that sleep deprivation had contributed to the Flydubai flight FZ981 crash in the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don, which killed all 62 passengers and crew on board.
“The way that [Flydubai] … builds the schedules does not account for circadian rhythm … they do not allow pilots to get the right amount of rest, or the proper rest before a flight, and that is exactly what both of these pilots were, the situation that they were in, for sure,” the pilot said.
RT also obtained the flight log of the co-captain of flight FZ981, which revealed that Alejandro Cruz Alava had worked for 11 days with only one day off prior to the crash. The whistleblower commented on the documents, stating that Alava had been transferred from day flights to night flights without being given enough time to readjust his sleep pattern.
22/03/16 RT Online
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Speaking to RT in Doha, the former pilot said Flydubai’s top management was aware of the issue, but had done nothing to resolve it. “When I was still at the company, one of the last things I told management is that there would be an accident because of pilot fatigue,” he said.
The reason for fatigue is simple – pilots are being repeatedly overworked and not given enough time to sleep between flights.
The whistleblower provided documents showing that pilots, junior pilots in particular, are being assigned multiple flight shifts in a row. He argued that the crew often does not have enough time for sleep readjustment.
“Everybody at the company has these dangerous shifts from day flight to night flight, and then back to a day flight, and then back to a night flight, and it has definitely been a big issue for a long time.”
The former captain added he was sure that sleep deprivation had contributed to the Flydubai flight FZ981 crash in the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don, which killed all 62 passengers and crew on board.
“The way that [Flydubai] … builds the schedules does not account for circadian rhythm … they do not allow pilots to get the right amount of rest, or the proper rest before a flight, and that is exactly what both of these pilots were, the situation that they were in, for sure,” the pilot said.
RT also obtained the flight log of the co-captain of flight FZ981, which revealed that Alejandro Cruz Alava had worked for 11 days with only one day off prior to the crash. The whistleblower commented on the documents, stating that Alava had been transferred from day flights to night flights without being given enough time to readjust his sleep pattern.
22/03/16 RT Online
