Narrative:

I called in fatigued on monday after a 5 1/2 hour maintenance delay in ZZZ for my trip the following day. We landed shortly after 10 pm after having been on duty for nearly 15 hours. On the return flight from ZZZ; I was extremely tired; having difficulty staying awake; and my body was twitching as it does occasionally if I've stayed up for too many hours. I had to do arm push ups in my seat and take an additional restroom break to move around to stay awake. With my body giving me that many signals of my level of fatigue I realized that I was not safe to even drive an automobile home much less return a few short hours later to fly a long day. I had an hour and a half drive until I would get home; and I was so tired; I had to take a nap in my car before I could continue the drive home; arriving at 1:30 am. I would have had to be up at 5 am for an almost 12 hour duty day on tuesday. I am on partial family leave to care for my father who is dying of terminal cancer. I had a very sleepless night with him on saturday when he was on excruciating pain thru the night; and I had scheduled to fly back to ZZZ1 arriving in ZZZ1 at 3:34pm on sunday. That flight had a maintenance delay and I spent several hours helping international and domestic connecting passengers find alternative flights to frankfurt; toronto and numerous other cities since the gate agents were swamped. Eventually that flight cancelled; and I arrived home many hours later than I had planned due to that maintenance delay. As a result; I had a very short night sleep on sunday night prior to my flights on monday. With my dying father and a daughter with cerebral palsy who requires a lot of care; I know that I can't do multiple nights without sleep and still function safely. I have had to take off so much work to care for my father and I cannot afford to not be paid for this trip which I needed to drop for safety sake because of excessive maintenance delays outside of my control. Please allow me to be paid. (9 minutes later; scheduling would have been obligated to buy the trip because of duty regs). I had to use my entire sick bank for a heart surgery recently and really don't want to have to use sick time for this. I bid to have sufficient rest and planned my flights to be back before 5pm on both sunday and monday however these maintenance cancellations and delays have made it impossible for me to get sufficient rest to operate an aircraft safely. Thank you for your consideration.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: An air carrier First Officer pleaded to be paid for flight time dropped due to cumulative fatigue as a result of extensive maintenance delays; minimum rest between scheduled flights and burdensome personal issues.

Narrative: I called in fatigued on Monday after a 5 1/2 hour maintenance delay in ZZZ for my trip the following day. We landed shortly after 10 pm after having been on duty for nearly 15 hours. On the return flight from ZZZ; I was extremely tired; having difficulty staying awake; and my body was twitching as it does occasionally if I've stayed up for too many hours. I had to do arm push ups in my seat and take an additional restroom break to move around to stay awake. With my body giving me that many signals of my level of fatigue I realized that I was not safe to even drive an automobile home much less return a few short hours later to fly a long day. I had an hour and a half drive until I would get home; and I was so tired; I had to take a nap in my car before I could continue the drive home; arriving at 1:30 am. I would have had to be up at 5 am for an almost 12 hour duty day on Tuesday. I am on partial family leave to care for my father who is dying of terminal cancer. I had a very sleepless night with him on Saturday when he was on excruciating pain thru the night; and I had scheduled to fly back to ZZZ1 arriving in ZZZ1 at 3:34pm on Sunday. That flight had a maintenance delay and I spent several hours helping international and domestic connecting passengers find alternative flights to Frankfurt; Toronto and numerous other cities since the gate agents were swamped. Eventually that flight cancelled; and I arrived home many hours later than I had planned due to that maintenance delay. As a result; I had a very short night sleep on Sunday night prior to my flights on Monday. With my dying father and a daughter with cerebral palsy who requires a lot of care; I know that I can't do multiple nights without sleep and still function safely. I have had to take off so much work to care for my father and I cannot afford to not be paid for this trip which I needed to drop for safety sake because of excessive maintenance delays outside of my control. Please allow me to be paid. (9 minutes later; scheduling would have been obligated to buy the trip because of duty regs). I had to use my entire sick bank for a heart surgery recently and really don't want to have to use sick time for this. I bid to have sufficient rest and planned my flights to be back before 5pm on both Sunday and Monday however these maintenance cancellations and delays have made it impossible for me to get sufficient rest to operate an aircraft safely. Thank you for your consideration.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of July 2013 and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.