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Captain of double crewed international flight describes fatigue experienced when a maintenance delay pushes the flight crew to their maximum duty day of 19.5 hours.
| Attributes | |
| ACN | 925678 |
| Time | |
| Date | 201012 |
| Aircraft 1 | |
| Make Model Name | Commercial Fixed Wing |
| Operating Under FAR Part | Part 121 |
| Flight Phase | Parked |
| Flight Plan | IFR |
| Person 1 | |
| Function | Captain Pilot Flying |
| Qualification | Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP) |
| Experience | Flight Crew Last 90 Days 150 Flight Crew Total 22000 Flight Crew Type 2300 |
| Events | |
| Anomaly | No Specific Anomaly Occurred All Types |
Narrative:
We took a long departure delay to fix a mechanical problem with prior history! After much delay the flight attendants went illegal; either 17 or 17.5 hours. Next the fams went illegal. We were still legal until 19 hours and 30 minutes. By the time we finally got new flight attendants it was over 19 hours; however we were still legal. If I knew how fatigued we would be at the other end of the 19 hours I would have refused to fly. My crew and I (although making no mistakes that we were aware of) were not at peak performance at the other end of the duty period. A 19.5 hour duty day would actually be much easier with a flying time of 16 hours than a flying time of 12 hours because the breaks would be significantly longer! I find it questionable that the pilots (the most safety-related people on the aircraft) would have the least restrictive duty limits of all.
Original NASA ASRS Text
Title: Captain of double crewed international flight describes fatigue experienced when a maintenance delay pushes the flight crew to their maximum duty day of 19.5 hours.
Narrative: We took a long departure delay to fix a mechanical problem with prior history! After much delay the flight attendants went illegal; either 17 or 17.5 hours. Next the FAMS went illegal. We were still legal until 19 hours and 30 minutes. By the time we finally got new flight attendants it was over 19 hours; however we were still legal. If I knew how fatigued we would be at the other end of the 19 hours I would have refused to fly. My crew and I (although making no mistakes that we were aware of) were not at peak performance at the other end of the duty period. A 19.5 hour duty day would actually be much easier with a flying time of 16 hours than a flying time of 12 hours because the breaks would be significantly longer! I find it questionable that the pilots (the most safety-related people on the aircraft) would have the least restrictive duty limits of all.
Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of April 2012 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.