Shocking! Most Indian pilots fall asleep while flying, claims survey

Almost 66 per cent of pilots in India fall asleep while flying, according to a recent survey.

Gurugram-based NGO, Safety Matters Foundation, in its survey of 542 pilots said that “Indian pilots flying with regional, domestic, domestic with destinations within four hours flying” dozed off in the cockpit without alerting/consent of crew members.

“Based on their responses, it was found that about 54% of the pilots suffer from severe excessive daytime sleepiness while 41% suffer from moderate daytime sleepiness,” the survey stated its findings.

In the survey, 74% of the pilots cited morning departures as the leading cause of fatigue.

The survey by the NGO showed that 54.2 per cent of the pilots suffer from severe excessive daytime sleepiness.

Following the publication of the survey, the Indian Commercial Pilots' Association (ICPA), which represents pilots of narrow-body aircraft at Air India, has urged civil aviation regulator DGCA to do away with all the current regulations related to fatigue management for flight crew and formulate new norms.

In a letter, dated September 12, written to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), the association also said that professionals, organisations and associations like ICPA should be involved while formulating regulations on fatigue.

"Scrap all the current regulations, circulars, et cetera regarding Fatigue Management for flight crew as they violate all the Scientific Principles and various Operational Knowledge and Experience promulgated in various ICAO SARPs," it said.

ICAO is the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) and SARPs refer to Standards and Recommended Practices.

The pilots' grouping has also suggested that regulations regarding fatigue should be formulated in line with ICAO SARPs based on scientific principles and operational knowledge and experience.

ICPA represents around 900 pilots of narrow-body aircraft at Air India. As per the letter, the purpose of the representation is to highlight that Indian provisiosn related to fatigue management for flight crew are in deviation from ICAO SARPs.