Study: Air-traffic controllers often suffer chronic fatigue


Associated Press

WASHINGTON

Air-traffic controllers’ work schedules often lead to chronic fatigue, making them less alert and endangering the safety of the national air-traffic system, according to a study the government kept secret for years.

Federal Aviation Administration officials posted the study online Monday, hours after The Associated Press reported the findings – and noted that agency officials had declined to furnish a copy despite repeated requests over the past three months, including a Freedom of Information Act filing.

The AP was able to obtain a draft of the final report dated Dec. 1, 2011. The report FAA posted online was dated December 2012, although the findings appear to be nearly identical to the draft.

The impetus for the study was a recommendation by the National Transportation Safety Board to the FAA and the National Air Traffic Controllers Association to revise controller schedules to provide rest periods that are long enough “to obtain sufficient restorative sleep.”

The study found that nearly 2 in 10 controllers had committed significant errors in the previous year – such as bringing planes too close together – and more than half attributed the errors to fatigue. A third of controllers said they perceived fatigue to be a “high” or “extreme” safety risk. Greater than 6 in 10 controllers indicated that in the previous year they had fallen asleep or experienced a lapse of attention while driving to or from midnight shifts, which typically begin about 10 p.m. and end about 6 a.m.

Overall, controllers whose activity was closely monitored by scientists averaged 5.8 hours of sleep per day over the course of a workweek. They averaged only 3.1 hours before midnight shifts and 5.4 hours before early-morning shifts.

The most-tiring schedules required controllers to work five-straight midnight shifts, or to work six days a week several weeks in a row, often with at least one midnight shift per week. The human body’s circadian rhythms make sleeping during daylight hours before a midnight shift especially difficult.

The study is composed of a survey of 3,268 controllers about their work schedules and sleep habits and a field study that monitored the sleep and the mental alertness of more than 200 controllers at 30 air-traffic facilities.

NASA produced the study at the FAA’s request.

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