I-Team: Asleep At The Stick
Imagine pilots landing on the wrong runway or off the runway, on taxiways, even landing at the wrong airport. Or imagine pilots falling asleep behind the stick, the controls of the airplane, as it comes in for a landing.Sound impossible or improbable?
In fact, all of these incidents have actually happened, sometimes dozens of times, in airplanes across the United States.
And these cases are happening more and more, especially in the last five years.
And all of these cases are the result of pilot fatigue, a problem that's been around for decades but one the I-Team discovered has become more prevalent and more serious in recent years.
The issue of pilot fatigue gained national urgency with the crash in Clarence Center New York, outside Buffalo, of a Continental Connection flight 3407 which was actually flown and operated by a private commuter company called Colgan Air, Incorporated.
The audio tape of air traffic controllers trying to reach the aircraft tells the whole story.
"Check Colgan Air," one air traffic controller could be heard on the audiotape calling out to the doomed plane. "What happened?!" asked the controller's supervisor in the control tower.
"I have no idea," replied the air traffic controller.
"Colgan Air 3407! Buffalo" said the controller again.
"You got him?" asked the supervisor on audiotape.
"No! What's his call sign?" replied the air traffic controller now suddenly unsure of the correct information for the airplane.
"Colgan 3407! Colgan 3407!" Again the air traffic controller calls out.
But there is no reply.
When listening to the audiotape you are listening to the moment air traffic controllers realized 49 lives just disappeared off radar, five miles outside of Buffalo, New York.
"He just disappeared. I don't have him Lonnie!" said the air traffic controller on the audiotape, his voice rising.
"He went 'x-x-x!' Then NOTHING!"
"Colgan 3407, Buffalo tower, how do you hear?"
Again, silence.
The Bombardier DHC-9-400 airplane had already crashed into Clarence Center township, hitting a home, killing a person inside the home and 49 people on board the airplane.
That panic that seized air traffic controllers last February swept across the entire commercial airline industry with the realization by investigators that pilot fatigue played a major role in the crash along with a lack of training and experience and ice on the wings.
But the CBS4 I-Team discovered that the Buffalo crash is only the latest incident involving pilot fatigue.
A two-month long I-Team investigation uncovered 1011 incidents nationwide since 1978 where pilot fatigue caused a safety concern on board the aircraft or an actual crash. 689 of those incidents happened in the last five years (2005-2009).
I-Team Related Links
Most Egregious Pilot Fatigue Stories (PDF)
Most Egregious Pilot Fatigue Stories (Excel)
"They push you to fly when you are tired," one veteran pilot told the CBS4 I-Team.
This commercial pilot has flown big jets for 30 years.
"I was in la la land, literally on final (approach to land)," said the veteran pilot whom we will call "Al" which is not his real name.
The pilot insisted he remain anonymous for fear he'd lose his job because he spoke out.
"I've seen people you know sitting there and all of a sudden you turn around and they're not necessarily conscious anymore they didn't want to take a nap but they just couldn't stay awake anymore," "Al" told the I-Team.
"I would say that fatigue issue is growing," said "John", another veteran long haul pilot who flies for another airplane and also didn't want to be identified for fear of losing a two decade career.
"I don't think it's really until you've landed and you've really kind of gotten through that you realize how tired you were at the end of the day and how far you were pushed," said "John," a veteran of nearly 20 years.
Another pilot, whom we will call "Larry" had a similar story. For me it was a flight from JFK to Pensacola," "Larry" told the I-Team while relating his worst case of flying while fatigued.
"Larry" is also a veteran of 20 years. He flies commercial jets with another airline but faces the same fatigue problem. He also asked we keep him anonymous for fear he'd lose his job for speaking out.
"And we ended up very late at night difficult approach and landing conditions and fog and various other issues. We got there (Pensacola) and we were all dead tired. And I look back on it and say maybe that wasn't such a good idea maybe I should have called a timeout back up in New York," "Larry" said.
"You're asking for someone to have an accident I mean you really are you can't expect people to go all day long and get four or five hours of sleep and do it again," said the first anonymous pilot whom we're calling "Al."
Using data from three different federal agencies, the FAA, NTSB and NASA, the I-Team pieced together a troubling history of pilots asleep or fatigued at the switch.
"Lives are quite literally at stake," said "Al."
Though earlier news reports showed more than 300 fatigue related incidents and accidents nationwide, the I-Team uncovered more than three times that many incidents.
"If that's happening to me it's happening a hundred times over throughout the country throughout the world," said the anonymous pilot we are calling "Larry."
One former federal aviation official agreed fatigue is a problem that occurs almost daily in some cockpit somewhere over the United States.
"We hear about a 10th of what really goes on," said
Ben Coleman who served nearly two decades as an air crash investigator for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB.)
Coleman now owns his own consulting firm Aerospace Management Systems Institute.
You can reach him via e-mail at: ben@airandspace.tv; or you can go to his company's website.
"I don't know any pilot that will responsibly want to fly an aircraft tired and fatigued. However I don't know of too many pilots that have taken that task and really supported the fact that I'm not going to take this flight because I'm tired," Coleman said.
In fact the data from the FAA, NTSB and NASA shows the problem is growing. There were 189 incidents in 2008 which is up from 117 incidents from the year before (2007). And in just the first 9 months of 2009 there were 104 incidents of serious pilot fatigue which is the same number as in many as entire years in the past.
I-Team Related Links
Most Egregious Pilot Fatigue Stories (PDF)
Most Egregious Pilot Fatigue Stories (Excel)
"Sometimes as a pilot you don't realize how tired you are," said safety expert Dave Zwegers of Embry Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach.
Zwegers is aviation safety manager at Embry Riddle and as such he oversees safety practices at the school including a policy to teach potential pilots from the start to recognize fatigue in themselves.
"Pilot fatigue can be serious," Zwegers said. "It degrades the performance and the alertness of the pilot."
You can find Embry Riddle's website by clicking here:
The federal aviation safety data compiled by the CBS4 I-Team shows that in 662 cases in the last five years the pilots were so concerned about fatigue degrading or impacting safety that they anonymously reported themselves to authorities.
"Sometimes we don't realize we're tired," said anonymous pilot "John." "You're taking off and your adrenaline is going. And it's not until you get to cruise flight, and everything settles in and the engines are humming and it's dark and quiet and that's when the fatigue really gets to you. And you just can't stay awake."
The 30 year veteran pilot we call "Al" agrees.
"Unfortunately, when you're at your most fatigued is when you're doing the most critical thing which is landing the airplane," "Al" told the I-Team.
Experts say increased economic pressures at airlines, especially regional airlines contribute to the problem of fatigue.
"All pilots are being pushed," said "Al." "But the commuter pilots, the regional guys, have it much worse."
Another issue, commutes by pilots themselves.
For instance, the co-pilot on that Buffalo crash lived in Seattle but commuted to work at her base in New York City.
Investigators suspect the female co-pilot the pilot spent the night before the crash sleeping in an airport lounge chair.
It's a problem every pilot and expert we talked with acknowledges is a problem and an issue.
"We had a pilot who flew from Santiago, Chile, in Miami for his flights," said Jay Rollins who flew for American Airlines for 20 years.
Rollins now runs his own aviation consulting firm and website.
You can e-mail Jay at : Orollins1@aol.com
You can find the website here.
"Even when the pilot flies in night before because maybe he has an early morning departure it's still a problem because you do it so often you tend to not want to pay for a hotel room," Rollins said.
Rollins and other pilots estimate that as many as 75 percent of all pilots commute a significant distance from their home to work.
"How is that not exhausting?" I-Team investigator Stephen Stock asked Rollins.
"Well it is exhausting quite frankly," Rollins said. "And it's a situation that has sort of evolved over the years. The airlines don't like it. But what can they do about it? The pilots unions support this because that's what their members want."
"If we don't change our safety culture its going happen again and again," the former NTSB accident investigator Ben Coleman said. "And that is not acceptable."
Many pilots we talked with want to change federal laws governing how long a pilot can be on duty.
But they also say they feat repercussions if they speak out publicly.
"The thing that worries me the most that we're still using rest rules that were promulgated in the 1950's," said the anonymous pilot we call "John."
Right now FAA rules allow companies to work pilots up to 16 hours a day as long as they are limited to 8 hours actual flight time. That's as long as there are no more than 30 flight hours a week.
"The 16 hour duty limit should in my opinion be shortened that definitely is a safety issue," said the anonymous pilot we called "Larry."
Then there's this.
The I-Team has learned that some companies push and even exceed those rules.
"This is another one where they went over their duty time 16 hour duty time for the day," said pilot Ken Edwards as he showed the I-Team piles of pilot and aircraft flight logs.
Ken Edwards used to fly for a commercial airline that he said used to push the rules.
"They don't enter data properly," Edwards said.
Edwards says he was fired after he refused to pilot a plane with what he called broken equipment.
"It shows there is a systemic problem with altering pilot flight time," said Edwards of the paperwork which came out during an FAA Enforcement investigation.
And as for his experiences,"There were times when I was ordered to go over 16 hrs of duty time in a day," Edwards said. "There were several pilots who went over their 16 hours of duty time in a day because they were ordered to." Two other former pilots for that same airline who did not want to be identified because they feared it would impact their future job prospects back Edwards up and say they were asked to fly past the 16 hour duty limit.
Edwards showed us hundreds of pages of handwritten and computer pilot logs that showed pilots flying five, six and seven, even eight legs in a day, some of them apparently exceeded the flight/block hours rules.
Edwards even showed us evidence of manipulated flight logs with entire flights by some pilots apparently disappearing from one record but backed up by another hand-written record.
"That black mark is an entire flight in this particular case that even though it's on the aircraft's flight log," Edwards said. "It was not put into the computer."
I-Team investigator Stephen Stock asked, "So we have a flight log here with records that show that the flight happened but this on the computer the flight disappears?"
"Mysteriously disappears," said Edwards.
"But the records filed by the pilot show she flew that flight?" Stock asked.
"Yes," Edwards replied.
"I had to divert," said the anonymous pilot we called "Al." "So they would take plane out and park on the runway."
The 30-year veteran pilot said his airline once forced him to fly way past the legal limit hopscotching around the country because of weather delays. The pilot told the I-Team that his superiors kept the plane's door closed to keep him legal as if he were still in flight even though the plane was on the ground. If the door had opened the pilot said, he would have legally been required to go off duty and get rest. It is a technique no longer legal today.
"I was on duty or awake for 26 hours," the pilot told the I-Team. "When I finally got to my destination, the company had given away my hotel room because I was so late. When I asked if they wanted me to sleep on the plane, they said "Can you?"
Even without manipulation of flight logs, experts say the current rules are antiquated and should have been changed years ago.
"Eight hours rest maybe gives you five hours of sleep after a 16 hour day and then follow that with another 14 15 hour day multiple legs," said the anonymous pilot we called "John." "Some of aircraft have no auto pilot and you have to work constantly without the auto pilot to help you. Especially with multiple legs it's very fatiguing."
That's why NASA is sponsoring ground-breaking research conducted by the same University of Iowa engineers and neuroscientists who once looked into driver fatigue in cars.
"These are high resolution eye cameras," said research leader Dr. Thomas "Mach" Schnell. "For many years we've been looking at what happens when you overload pilots. We've now come across more and more demand to look at the boring side of flying so dull so automated the pilot virtually has nothing to do. "
Researchers tell the I-Team that boredom and automated cockpits appears to also contribute to pilot drowsiness and fatigue. That's why these University of Iowa scientists are putting electrodes on the heads of pilots to measure brain waves.
"We can still track his eyes," said Dr. Schnell of the electrodes and tracking system. "Basically we are filming his face."
And the researchers are putting cameras in cockpits to watch and record eye movements and look for warning signs of fatigue.
"We will see them blinking their eyes much slower when they are fatigued and spaced out," said Dr. Schnell.
The scientists at the University of Iowa are just beginning this study which will put about twenty real commercial pilots into simulators after 8 and 10 hour long work days. Then the scientists will have the subject pilots "fly" the simulator for another 5 to 6 hours and track their eye and facial movements as well as brain waves and activity.
"We want to catch it early so they don't actually fall asleep," said Dr. Schnell.
This is the first research of its kind in the country.
Federal authorities hope to use this research not only to create new rules regarding pilot flight time but also to develop and implement new technologies that will reduce and even eliminate fatigue in the cockpit.
"We should make rules based on sound science not based on politics," said Dr. Schnell.
You can find a link to the University of Iowa research here.
But politics are sure to continue to be a factor.
For instance, this University of Iowa research is already showing the value of putting cameras in cockpits. But that's something pilots' unions have vigorously fought against in the past.
"I believe there's a whole new area of research and potentially even training that will allow us to work with pilots to make them aware what fatigue can do," Dr. Schnell said.
"It (fatigue) has been a factor in many fatal accidents. And we should be doing more to try to prevent this as opposed to allow the status quo to go on. Passengers should be worried about it," said Ken Edwards.
"And then you've got the airlines (that say) 'We can't afford this,'" said the anonymous pilot we call "Al."
"Well, how many more deaths can you afford?"
The I-Team has learned that federal aviation experts ALREADY knew about the fatigue data we've now made public...and that for years the NTSB has pushed the FAA to tighten pilot flight rules to make sure they get more rest..
In fact they put out this brochure calling for the FAA to address fatigue immediately. The brochure came out in 1990! But so far, that cry for change has fallen on deaf ears in Washington.
With all the attention on this issue the FAA now says it is considering changes in the rules and for that reason it won't comment or answer questions about pilot fatigue.
