Former NTSB officials: Apply fatigue rules to cargo pilots

A pair of former National Transportation Safety Board officials are urging federal regulators to apply scheduling rules for avoiding fatigue among commercial airline pilots to pilots who fly cargo airplanes. 

Former NTSB Chairman Jim Hall and the agency’s former managing director Peter Goelz said Friday that the risk of fatigue is equally as high for cargo pilots as it is people who fly commercial airplanes. 

“The FAA’s new pilot fatigue rules, enacted in January, were the first major revisions to pilot flight and duty limits in 60 years,” the duo said in an op-ed that was published on Friday in USA Today. 

{mosads}“They are based on modern knowledge of the effects of sleep and circadian rhythm on the human body. Cargo pilots were included when the regulations were proposed by the FAA, but the White House ordered the agency to remove them,” Hall and Goelz continued. “This despite the fact that cargo airlines use the same aircraft as passenger airlines, take off and land on the same runways and fly the same jet routes as all of us.” 

The scheduling rules at issue require airlines to allow their pilots to get at least 10 hours of off-duty time between flight schedules. Transportation Department officials have said the time off would give pilots at least the opportunity to get eight hours of sleep before they get to the cockpit.

But the new rules only applied to pilots flying airplanes carrying human passengers, not those at the helm of cargo planes, such as the ones operated by companies like UPS and FedEx. 

Lawmakers have introduced legislation to close the loophole, but the former NTSB officials said the effort was being blocked by cargo shipping companies. 

“In Washington, they say you should always ‘follow the money,’ ” Hall and Goelz wrote.” The trail is obvious: UPS and FedEx, the nation’s largest cargo airlines, have spent more than $140 million in lobbying and political contributions since President Obama took office. Small wonder that this administration carved cargo pilots out of the rule.” 

The former NTSB officials cited a 2013 crash of a UPS plane in Birmingham, Ala., that was partially attributed to fatigue as evidence the scheduling limits were needed for cargo pilot. 

“Just days ago, the National Transportation Safety Board reported the findings of its investigation into the 2013 crash of a UPS cargo plane in Birmingham, Ala., which killed two crew members,” Hall and Goelz wrote. “The NTSB, in part, blamed pilot fatigue for the crash. The cockpit voice recorder captured the plane’s crew discussing how tired they were just before the doomed flight took off.” 

They concluded that Congress should pass the legislation to require the FAA to apply the scheduling rules to cargo pilots. 

“Millions of Americans who fly, and the many more who live under the flight paths of cargo airliners, are threatened by the effects of fatigue,” Hall and Goelz wrote. “If the FAA is unwilling or unable to resist the political pressure to keep its fatigue rules from applying to all pilots, including those from cargo airlines, then Congress needs to step in to restore one level of safety to our skies.”