In taking on the job of arranging a scientific and medical review of existing flight time limitations (FTL) legislation, it looks as if the European Aviation Safety Agency didn't know what it was letting itself in for.
FTL has always been (and still is) so fraught with politics, social engineering and industrial issues that the crew fatigue it was designed to protect against hardly got a look in. Existing European legislation on FTL, known as EU Ops Sub-Part Q, is based mainly on operational experience, which could be argued at least to be a practical approach. But now, to the horror of the airlines, EASA has undertaken to add the science ingredient to the FTL poisoned chalice.
At the trial of Jesus Christ, the Roman governor Pontius Pilate famously asked "what is truth?" EASA and other European Union bodies - like the Commission, the European Transport Safety Council and the Parliament - might have done well to ask "what is science?", before adding that ingredient to the FTL deliberation. Because since EASA released its Moebus Aviation report, which undertook to provide scientific and medical answers to 18 EASA questions designed to test the scientific validity of Sub-Part Q, the agencies have been deluged with definitions about what fatigue science is. And, probably more to the point, about what it is not.
A leading expert in sleep and fatigue science, Professor Mark Rosekind, says much is known about the symptoms of fatigue, but adds: "We are still in the dark ages as regards treatment." The study of fatigue is not precise and refined, he implies. He says that working pilots, rigged up to machines that measure their brain activity, have carried out landings successfully while undergoing micro-sleeps. Rosekind says he definitely does not recommend this, but referring to the Moebus report he says it contains some "risky assumptions".
It could be argued that EASA, in providing Moebus with a list of questions, was pre-judging the scientific and medical issues that might relate to Sub-Part Q. Perhaps it would have been more scientific to ask the scientists to review the whole regulation and determine, according to their own research, whether risks could be identified. But maybe they would have come to the same conclusions anyway - that some of the more extreme reaches of the EU legislation overstep the mark.
Those who thought that a quick scientific and medical review of FTL rules would drive out all doubt will be disappointed. The final rules will be framed by the EC and tested in Parliament. All that can be hoped for is that the lawmakers will take science into account along with all the other considerations.
Source: Flight International
