To Ms. Helen Soter, Instructor. From Brandon Johnson,

To: Ms. Helen Soter, Instructor From: Brandon Johnson, Student Date: February 15, 2017 Subject: Negative Impact of Sleep Deprivation on Pilots Introduction Meeting the recommended hours of sleep per night is taught as a building block of success. However, certain professions and lifestyles may prevent an adequate sleep schedule. Airline pilots are often required to work busy and ever-changing schedules. Many pilots frequently travel across time zones and wake up for an early morning flight. Pilots often operate an aircraft even when he or she recognizes sleep deprivation in his or her self. The airline industry should prevent pilots who are sleep deprived from flying an aircraft by implementing policies which require testing of†¦show more content†¦The CFS gives fatigue scores in three categories: psychological, physical, and global, along with a binary classification of the likelihood of fatigue (Jackson Earl, 2006). According to Jackson and Earl (2006), the questionnaire resulted in 121 of the 162 short-haul or scheduled airline pilots being severely fatigued. A different study involved placing questionnaire in the lockers o f 1500 Portuguese commercial pilots (Reis, Mestre, Canhà £o, Gradwell, Paiva, 2016). This questionnaire asked participants to complete the Fatigue Severity Scale. This scale expresses the significance level of participant fatigue by using weighted questions (Reis, Mestre, Canhà £o, Gradwell, Paiva, 2016). According to Reis, et al. (2009), 90.6% of 435 respondents regularly experience fatigue based on how they answered the Fatigue Severity Scale. A survey of 739 pilots found that fatigue was caused mainly by night flights and jet lag, 59% and 45%, respectively (Petrilli, Roach, Dawson, Lamond, 2006). Pilot fatigue is a big concern for the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), as it has been among the top of the list for safety concerns for the past 27 years (Caldwell, 2012). Incident reports indicate that 20% of flight incidents are related to fatigue, and that during the 90’s, about 45 incidents a year were related to fatigue (Hartzler, 2014). Hartzler also claims the decreased performance caused by