Benchmarking Fatigue in United States Helicopter Air Ambulance Pilots

Details

• Creators:
  Baumgartner, Hannah M ; Durham, Justin ; Sanders, Teena ; Westrick, Sarah E ; Hilditch, Cassie J
• Corporate Creators:
  United States. Department of Transportation. Federal Aviation Administration. Civil Aerospace Medical Institute
• Subject/TRT Terms:
  Air Ambulance Services Air Pilots Ambulance Personnel Helicopters Physiological Fatigue Sleep
• Publication/ Report Number:
  DOT/FAA/AM- 26/15
• Resource Type:
  Tech Report
• Geographical Coverage:
  United States
• Corporate Publisher:
  United States. Department of Transportation. Federal Aviation Administration. Office of Aerospace Medicine. Civil Aerospace Medical Institute (CAMI)
• Abstract:
  Helicopter air ambulance (HAA) pilots are exposed to fatigue risk due to on-call and shiftwork operations required for24-hour emergency service. The current field study aimed to provide a benchmark for fatigue in US HAA operations toinform future fatigue management strategies. US HAA pilots working 7-days-on, 7-days-off schedules were invited toparticipate in a field study. Data collection included 3 days Pre-hitch, a 7-day Duty Period (hitch), and 3 days Post-hitch(recovery) and involved reaction time tests, subjective sleepiness and fatigue ratings, workload ratings, and actigraphyto estimate sleep metrics. Pilots (N = 120, from 21 US HAA companies) working either daytime, nighttime, or mixed(e.g., 3 days followed by 4 nights) schedules completed an initial survey followed by 13 days of data collection duringnormal operations. The current study found that: (i) half of the HAA pilots surveyed have poor quality sleep; (ii)cumulative fatigue builds across a 7-day hitch, affecting performance on all schedule types; (iii) pilot subjective fatigue and sleepiness ratings remained consistent, even when objective measures of performance worsened; (iv) pilots obtain less sleep during a hitch than on days off on all schedule types, despite taking extra naps during night duties; (v)fatigue accumulates faster across a duty period for night and mixed schedules compared to day schedules; (vi) fatigue accumulated across a hitch persists into recovery days; (vii) circadian disruptions associated with flight requests and subsequent trips operated during periods of low circadian alertness negatively impact performance; and (viii) pilots experience sleep inertia effects (reduced alertness) when woken up by a flight request. Altogether, these results offer the most comprehensive assessment of US HAA pilot fatigue since the introduction of updated HAA regulations in 2014and offer a number of potential fatigue mitigation opportunities for the industry.
• Format:
  PDF
• Collection(s):
  FAA Civil Aerospace Medical Institute
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:669a09c76b6cc808d4ebc05d2fbfe31934b0c22bb19b2d1cfd0301311d4263b901e5eda81e24f32024b80a8707ae020a8937cc2393b6b256aadfe60f02897526
• Download URL:
  https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/92635/dot_92635_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 6.94 MB ]