How pilot fatigue effects human performance?

How pilot fatigue effects human performance?

Introduction

Increasing attention, in the recent years, has been emphasized on the impacts of fatigue on the human performance in the sector of aviation as part of the research regarding the grounds and reasons of the supposed human error. Having most of the accidents in the aviation sector currently being credited by human error, there is escalating evidence for supporting the research in this domain. For the reason that every area within the aviation domain has its individual major factors contributing to fatigue, making a sector-wide approach, which is really extensive for the compass of this study; this paper is limited to the discussion of fatigue to the cockpit crews. In the cockpit crews, human fatigue is derived from the internal as well as external parameters of the cockpit. Many of the key reasons of fatigue would be monitored, which would be followed by a short discussion regarding the effects of fatigue on aviation, the various accessible counter measures and the implications for the organizational administration.

Fatigue and Flight Operations

Fatigue serves as a risk to the safety of aviation due to the mutilations in the human performance and alertness caused by it. Fatigue is referred to a non-pathologic condition leading to a reduced capability of maintaining the workload or functions because of physical or mental strain. The term employed for describing an assortment of experiences from exhausted, or tired, or sleepy. There are a couple of chief psychological phenomena which have been shown to cause fatigue; circadian rhythm disruption and sleep loss. Fatigue is an ordinary response to several states which are common in the flight operations due to long duty cycles, shift work, and sleep loss (Wickens, 2003). It has significant consequences on human performance and psychology since it is vital that every flight crew member remains attentive and alert, and play their part in flight safety by means of their observations, actions and communications. There is only one effectual treatment for fatigue, which is adequate sleep.

Causes of human fatigue in modern cockpit crews

Fatigue or dilapidation of the capability of an individual for performing tasks because of the harmful impacts of several factors with the passage of time, may be characterized into a number of extensive realms of cause. These realms count in lack of familiarity, environmental factors, physical exertion, and excessive workload. The most conveniently identified reason for fatigue is too much of workload. Inside the environment of a cockpit, the examples of probable reasons of undue workloads which may lead to the development of fatigue, count in; the supplementary workload needed in duration of landing and take-off that has an escalated effect on short-haul pilots (Orlady & Orlady, 2009).

Such pilots carry out several concise segments in duration of a shift, and this overload of work would have a relatively high percentage of time in these modes and thus would develop fatigue rather rapidly over a particular time period, in comparison to the long haul pilots spending most of ...