An international Captain described an onerous flight sequence in the Pacific he believed to be unsafe due to cumulative and predictable fatigue.

2010-11 · NASA ASRS report 918702

Date: 2010-11 · Aircraft: Commercial Fixed Wing

Anomalies: other-fatigue

Synopsis

An international Captain described an onerous flight sequence in the Pacific he believed to be unsafe due to cumulative and predictable fatigue.

Narrative

This report concerns a trans-Pacific flight assignment including back to back all night pairings (body clock); two un-augmented inter-Asia segments and 36 hours of flight time. We started the sequence with a 12.7 hour actual flight; single augmented with an hour plus delay on the front end. When we arrived we cabbed to downtown for an additional 1.5 hours on the body before rest. The first internal Asia leg is all night; un-augmented. The return leg is daylight-but all night body time-followed by another 1.5 hour cab ride downtown.The [opportunities for] rest were insufficient to maintain any alertness particularly on the last leg. Both the First Officer and I experienced periods of unintended sleep while at the controls. No amount of coffee or mental discipline was sufficient to stay awake!!! This is unsafe and made more unsafe by requiring: 1. Over 12 hours single augmented on the first leg. 2. Two un-augmented legs on the back side of the clock with long preflight awake hours. 3. Over 8 extra hours of 'duty time' in CABS!!!Rework this trip before someone gets hurt. No one in the cockpit for the last 6 hours was at their peak to respond to irregular situations. We weren't even able to stay awake the whole time in the seat.

Source: NASA Aviation Safety Reporting System (public domain). Reports are voluntary submissions and are not verified by NASA.

Loading the flight search…

Frequently asked questions

How do I search flights by aircraft type on FlightFinder?

Pick an aircraft model — Boeing 737, Airbus A320, A380, Boeing 787 Dreamliner and more — enter your origin airport, and FlightFinder shows every route that plane flies from there with live fares.

Which aircraft types can I filter by?

We support Boeing 737/747/757/767/777/787, the full Airbus A220/A319/A320/A321/A330/A340/A350/A380 family, Embraer E170/E175/E190/E195, Bombardier CRJ and Dash 8, and the ATR 42/72 turboprops.

Is FlightFinder free to use?

Search and schedules are free. Pro ($4.99/month, $39/year, or $99 one-time lifetime) unlocks the enriched flight card — on-time stats, CO₂ per passenger, amenities, live gate & weather — plus My Trips with push alerts.

Where does the route data come from?

Live schedules come from Amadeus, AeroDataBox and Travelpayouts. Observed routes (which aircraft actually flew a given city pair) are crowdsourced from adsb.lol ADS-B data under the Open Database License.