AP Uncovers Suppressed Study on Air Traffic Controller Fatigue

The Associated Press says the government has been refusing for more than three years to release a study that found air traffic controllers’ work schedules often lead to chronic fatigue, making them less alert and endangering the safety of the national air traffic system.

That the study came to such a conclusion is not surprising; that the federal government kept it quiet and repeatedly denied the Associated Press’ requests and a Freedom of Information Act filing certainly is.

The AP says it was able to obtain a draft of the final report dated December 1, 2011. More than 6 in 10 controllers said they had fallen asleep or were distracted on their way to their shifts.The controllers averaged approximately 5.8 hours of sleep per day.

The study also found that 60 percent of the controllers working between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. admitted to dozing off while driving to or from work.

They averaged 3.25 hours before some shifts. The report followed controllers’ sleep habits and patterns, and measured their alertness at work.

More than a dozen recommendations to help prevent fatigue were laid out in the report, including getting rid of the six day a week schedules.

In 2011 a controller working around midnight at Reagan National Airport fell asleep forcing two airliners to essentially land themselves.

They also said rest breaks during shifts weren’t frequent enough because staffing levels are too low.

“Although fatigue is an issue in any 24/7 operation, the FAA has taken many positive steps to minimize fatigue”, Brown said. “The fatigue modeling we’ve done shows that there is greater alertness using these updating scheduling practices”.

The study was completed several months after a series of incidents involving controllers falling asleep on the job embarrassed FAA officials and led to the resignation of the head of the agencys air traffic organization. Forty-nine of the 50 people on board were killed. On the morning of the crash, the controller at the Lexington airport who only had two hours of sleep in the previous 24 hours cleared the plan for takeoff without noticing it was on the wrong runway.

“As a result of all of these actions, the whole problem of controller fatigue has improved quite dramatically”, FAA Administrator Michael Huerta said in an interview.

In one instance, a controller at Louisville global Airport in Kentucky described sending two cargo planes dangerously close together as they descended during the controller’s midnight shift in October.