“Miracle on the Hudson” Pilots Speaks Out Against Pilot Fatigue

Capt. “Sully” Sullenberger and First Officer Jeff Skiles commented on proposed changes to FAA pilot fatigue rules, stating that they may actually cause more fatigue, instead of less.  See their comments here.

One comment that stood out was from Jeff:  “We’re here to tell you that you cannot reduce pilot fatigue by increasing the amount of time that a pilot is at the controls. The amount of time a pilot can fly must be maintained at the current eight hours a day,” Skiles said.  “Fatigue” can be a tough nut to crack, and this root cause shows up often during incident and accident investigations.  I’ll have to go back and look at the proposed rule change to see the justification on actually raising the behind-the-controls time limit. 

Jeff Skiles was a keynote speaker at the 2010 TapRooT® Summit in San Antonio last month.  He gave a great description of the actual incident itself, but did not discuss pilot fatigue.