Latest Air-Safety Idea: Naps in the Cockpit

Airlines, Unions Urge FAA to Allow Pilots to Sleep Midflight to Alleviate Fatigue; a Tough Sell for Passengers

U.S. airlines and their unions have joined forces to push the Federal Aviation Administration to let pilots do what was once unthinkable: sleep on the job.

Though the practice of nodding off midflight in the cockpit is now strictly forbidden by the FAA, U.S. airlines and pilot unions say there is reputable research supporting the notion that so-called controlled napping can enhance safety by making crews more alert during critical, often hectic descents and landings.

For years, several large foreign airlines, including British Airways, Qantas and some Asian carriers, have allowed one pilot at a time to catch a few minutes of shut-eye during routine cruise portions of certain flights, when crews sometimes have relatively little to do for hours.

Such rest strategies have been most relevant to long-range international or transcontinental flights, though it isn't clear whether the FAA also might consider their use for certain short-haul schedules.

Either way, the idea is a tough sell for passengers who might have trouble relaxing if they think their captain may be asleep at the controls.

"It may seem counterintuitive to folks in the back of the plane, but it's the right thing to do" for safer skies, said Bill Voss, president of the Flight Safety Foundation, an international safety group that has studied ways to combat fatigue in the cockpit.

Fatigue particularly afflicts pilots who cross multiple time zones, work successive late-night and early-morning shifts and commute long distances to report to work.

Napping is "an excellent fatigue-mitigation measure" and "there's no question it produces better pilot performance at the critical phases of flight," said Gregory Belenky, a sleep scientist at Washington State University. He briefed airline and union representatives before they submitted their recommendations to regulators.

Pilots say naps not only make sense, but that they also already take them. To avoid incriminating comments that could be captured on cockpit voice recorders, they sometimes use code with their onboard colleagues. "I think I'm going to meditate now" is one signal, according to pilots.

A recent study reported that a majority of commuter pilots in a survey revealed that they had fallen asleep at least once behind the controls. It's not unusual for some commuter crews to work 14-hour days flying multiple short hops requiring as many as five or six landings.

More broadly, safety experts around the world have long recognized the dangers of overworked or sleep-deprived pilots in dozens of fatal crashes and hundreds of close calls. In the U.S., aviation-accident investigators list tired pilots as one of their top 10 safety concerns, linking them to at least 10 U.S. airliner accidents and 260 fatalities since 1990.

In February 2008, both pilots of a regional jet en route from Honolulu to Hilo, Hawaii, operated by commuter carrier Go!, fell asleep while cruising at 21,000 feet. For about 18 minutes, they failed to respond to frantic calls from air-traffic controllers. The flight eventually landed safely at its destination, but after an investigation, the National Transportation Safety Board in August urged the FAA to identify ways to reduce pilot fatigue during such short-haul flights.

In the past, fears about how pilot naps would play with the public doomed similar proposals. In the mid-1990s, the FAA and the Air Line Pilots Association agreed to the idea of controlled napping in a broader revision of fatigue rules.

But high-ranking political appointees at the Department of Transportation stripped out the language over fears of negative political fallout and ridicule, according to people familiar with the matter. The entire proposal later stalled in squabbles among airlines and unions.

Safety experts have since stepped up their support. Last year, participants in an FAA fatigue symposium agreed that naps should be made legal.

"The excuse that "it doesn't pass the Jay Leno test" [for fear of ridicule] is no longer valid," Curt Graeber, a former government and industry sleep expert who did some of the earliest studies on the topic, told a House transportation panel this summer.

U.S. airlines that shied away from taking a public position in the past now seem convinced.

Research provides "overwhelming evidence that controlled napping provides significant" ways to reduce fatigue risk and "other regulatory agencies have endorsed it for many years with no adverse consequences," according to a recent letter to the FAA from industry groups representing U.S. passenger and cargo carriers. The letter was first reported last month by the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

A position paper adopted by the Aerospace Medical Association, which represents flight surgeons and aviation sleep specialists, concluded that in-seat naps of 40 or 45 minutes -- taken when pilot stress and workloads are low -- can "significantly improve alertness" during later phases of a flight.

AMR Corp.'s American Airlines is one of three major U.S. carriers gearing up to collect real-time fatigue data from pilots before, during and after long-haul international runs. The findings are expected to influence FAA decisions.

Deliberations about napping come as part of a comprehensive review of federal rules covering pilot fatigue. A joint industry-labor committee recently submitted a package of proposed changes to help the FAA rewrite decades-old pilot-scheduling regulations to reflect the latest findings about the causes of fatigue.

The recommendations, which could bring sweeping changes to airline operations, also call for limiting flying time and duty periods based on the time of day, the number of takeoffs during a trip and the internal body clocks of pilots.

Under these principles, the FAA would jettison rigid, one-size-fits-all fatigue rules covering all types of airline operations.

Some passenger advocates are likely to balk at the napping clause. "Both pilots in the cockpit need to be well-rested," said Kate Hanni, head of FlyersRights.org, which has clashed with the FAA previously over safety and passenger rights. "If the FAA decides to let one of them nap during any part of a trip" without requiring a replacement to sit behind the controls, "I have a huge problem with that," she said.

FAA chief Randy Babbitt has pledged to quickly finalize new rules, though he and other agency officials haven't yet expressed opinions about pilot napping. Airline trade groups and pilot union leaders also have declined to comment.

As financially strapped airlines seek to increase efficiency by squeezing pilots to fly more hours per month, pilots say secret naps behind the controls are becoming more widespread.

Safety experts caution that cockpit snoozing shouldn't be used to extend pilot workdays or to replace planned sleep in aircraft rest areas. On long-range international flights, which can stretch well beyond 16 hours, there are up to two replacement pilots aboard.

Various foreign regulators years ago approved catnaps in the cockpit at 40,000 feet -- though some Asian aviation authorities stopped short of explicitly sanctioning the practice. In Europe, where controversy is brewing over whether to reduce maximum daily and weekly work hours, pilots representing 36 countries demonstrated outside the European Parliament in Brussels to complain that current rules put passengers at risk

If in-flight naps gain the imprimatur of the FAA, they could become a formal part of everyday airline procedures, "even if they may not be politically correct," said Mr. Voss.

The latest industry-government effort to find common ground on nagging fatigue disputes, Dr. Belenky said, shows both sides have decided: "Let's do what the science recommends."

Write to Andy Pasztor at andy.pasztor@wsj.com