Narrative:

I returned from my flight at 05:00. I had barely fallen asleep upon arriving home when I was awakened by crew scheduling assigning me a trip to leave at 07:00 the next morning. Departing at that time requires that I get up at 03:00. Not easy on the body after a previous all-nighter. Less than 3 hours later I was awakened again; this time by the flight office. They were calling me about some training that was supposedly past due. They had called me twice last week; and I had been unable to reach them when going to work on the weekend.I was unaware of this training. Apparently the only notification had been some emails sent through the company computer system. After the call I went back through the emails my bidding program had saved. I found the email the flight manager had mentioned. He had also mentioned something that had been left in my mailbox at the domicile. I recalled throwing out some kind of colored brochure or booklet that also looked like more of the constant propaganda we get inundated with. As the required training referenced this booklet; I spent a couple of hours going through our trash without success. I decided to go back to the airport; only to find the booklet in my car where it had fallen out of my suitcase. Taking the test took several hours due to slow loading modules and videos. As I was preparing for the training; I got yet another call from the flight office harassing me about this training; and again disturbing my rest. I was told by the flight office that I was past the due date for this training; and that I would soon be classified as non-qualified to fly. This was confirmed by the email. In short; I spent the entire day running on less than 3 hours of sleep. I found myself very tired and decided that it would be quite unsafe to get up at three in the morning and go flying passengers around. Thus; I reluctantly reported fatigued for my assignment on the 12th. This is the first time in the 21 years at the company I can recall getting no notification for important safety training other than an email. I also do not recall ever having only a couple of weeks advance notice for such things. In fact; I cannot recall any training event that did not involve formal classroom training; or at least some kind of guidance. Training involving procedures; SOP's and other safety aspects of airline operations should not be so casual in nature. How did the FAA sign off on this? Some of these changes are major changes to the way we fly airplanes. Ways that are trained into our backbones to the point of instinctual reactions to dangerous situations are now different and relegated to a simple click-and-read computer program for training purposes. The absence of blood in the aviation industry is largely a result of highly experienced and well trained pilots. Is this something to be thrown away? Changes to very fundamental procedures are far from a trivial matter; but that seems to be exactly the way it is now handled at our company. In safety matters; I have been trained to take the more conservative of multiple viewpoints. Perhaps that is no longer relevant or desired by our training department? I have now completed this joke of a training program; but I need to self-disclose that I flew two legs after a training deadline I was unaware of. At least I did not go fly when exhausted from lack of sleep.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: A fatigued air carrier Captain expressed displeasure at the company's notification for--as well as the content of--computer based training on amalgamated regular and emergency procedures for the company's newly merged flight crews.

Narrative: I returned from my flight at 05:00. I had barely fallen asleep upon arriving home when I was awakened by Crew Scheduling assigning me a trip to leave at 07:00 the next morning. Departing at that time requires that I get up at 03:00. Not easy on the body after a previous all-nighter. Less than 3 hours later I was awakened again; this time by the Flight Office. They were calling me about some training that was supposedly past due. They had called me twice last week; and I had been unable to reach them when going to work on the weekend.I was unaware of this training. Apparently the only notification had been some emails sent through the company computer system. After the call I went back through the emails my bidding program had saved. I found the email the flight manager had mentioned. He had also mentioned something that had been left in my mailbox at the domicile. I recalled throwing out some kind of colored brochure or booklet that also looked like more of the constant propaganda we get inundated with. As the required training referenced this booklet; I spent a couple of hours going through our trash without success. I decided to go back to the airport; only to find the booklet in my car where it had fallen out of my suitcase. Taking the test took several hours due to slow loading modules and videos. As I was preparing for the training; I got yet another call from the Flight Office harassing me about this training; and again disturbing my rest. I was told by the Flight Office that I was past the due date for this training; and that I would soon be classified as non-qualified to fly. This was confirmed by the email. In short; I spent the entire day running on less than 3 hours of sleep. I found myself very tired and decided that it would be quite unsafe to get up at three in the morning and go flying passengers around. Thus; I reluctantly reported fatigued for my assignment on the 12th. This is the first time in the 21 years at the company I can recall getting no notification for important safety training other than an email. I also do not recall ever having only a couple of weeks advance notice for such things. In fact; I cannot recall any training event that did not involve formal classroom training; or at least some kind of guidance. Training involving procedures; SOP's and other safety aspects of airline operations should not be so casual in nature. How did the FAA sign off on this? Some of these changes are major changes to the way we fly airplanes. Ways that are trained into our backbones to the point of instinctual reactions to dangerous situations are now different and relegated to a simple click-and-read computer program for training purposes. The absence of blood in the aviation industry is largely a result of highly experienced and well trained pilots. Is this something to be thrown away? Changes to very fundamental procedures are far from a trivial matter; but that seems to be exactly the way it is now handled at our company. In safety matters; I have been trained to take the more conservative of multiple viewpoints. Perhaps that is no longer relevant or desired by our training department? I have now completed this joke of a training program; but I need to self-disclose that I flew two legs after a training deadline I was unaware of. At least I did not go fly when exhausted from lack of sleep.

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.