How could pilots bear more responsibility for safety under retooled safety regulations?
Trock: While pilots have historically resisted anti-fatigue measures that may intrude into their personal lives and privacy in the past, such as forcing them to pay for mandated hotel stays before flights, regulators are already revisiting this issue with pilots groups, safety advocates and the carriers. Crashes prompt questions of whether existing fatigue rules adequately reflect pilots’ lives today. Some believe that in addition to full flight schedules, pilots have to cope with realities such as increasingly long work commutes that, over time, could cause early fatigue and erode concentration — potentially dangerous if familiar automated systems fail, requiring action in seconds. The FAA will also need to work within privacy laws to retool rules on pilots’ training records, and we expect this area to undergo changes as well. The pilots’ training records and results are drawing more scrutiny, as is the question of how airlines and authorities can help ensure pilots’ accurate and comp
