Safety management is about identifying and mitigating hazards to an acceptable risk level.  Interestingly enough, one of the more common causal factors to many safety incidents is human fatigue and too often, this is taken for granted and we aren’t proactive about mitigating.

Fatigue manifests itself in behavioral alertness deficits.  This means that our reaction time is negatively affected, and our decision-making ability is compromised when fatigue is high.  When operating an aircraft, fixing aircraft, servicing an aircraft, marshaling an aircraft, or even staying focused to properly plan a flight, being fatigued can lead to safety related issues.

Science has evolved over the years to really understand where the phenomenon comes from and thus how to assess it and proactive mitigate it.  There are several factors leading to fatigue but the three most significant contributors to it are:

• Homeostatic process:  The buildup of sleep pressure over the time a person is awake. The human body can provide about 16-17 hours or reliable wakefulness and then it wants to start shutting down.
• Circadian Misalignment process:  This is the biological process that makes people alert during their biological day and sleepy during their biological night.   Working at night is working against your biological system and jet lag is essentially a similar fatigue generating situation in aviation.
• Sleep Debt:  Humans need between 7-9 hours of sleep per day to be ‘normal’.  Day after day of getting less than our bodies need will induce a sleep debt that can compound itself through a busy workweek or extended trip.

Polaris Aero’s FlightRisk application utilizes the biomathematical models developed and managed by Pulsar Informatics.  By incorporating an objective estimate of sleep and fatigue about an upcoming trip or flight, flight departments can have an open dialog about how to mitigate fatigue and fly as safely as possible.  

For more information about Polaris Aero VOCUS products and services, visit https://polarisaero.com or contact [email protected]