Fatigue: Physical & Mental Weariness Causes & Impact - Research Paper

Introduction

Fatigue is either physical or mental weariness triggered by either stress, medication, long working hours without rest, psychological or physical illness. Fatigue can also be as a result of one or more environmental impacts like improper dieting, inadequate rest, work, poor physical conditioning or even a symptom of chronic disease process manifestation in the body (Avers & Johnson, 2011).

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Save 25%

According to ICAO, fatigue is a physiological scenario of declined mental or physical capabilities; thus, as a result of sleeping loss or long extended hours of being awake, circadian phase or even workload. ICAO is in the front line to advocate for lifestyle adjustment of pilots by putting measures that will ensure that the work environment is friendly enough for the safety of flights. Regulating the number of hours per pilot for flying is a form of therapy, ensuring that they have enough sleep and rest (Rosekind et al., 1994).

Management of fatigue is of significance since it declines a person's capabilities in performing the entire operational tasks. The action affects efficiency operational. However, in cases where persons do undertake safety -crucial practices, fatigue -modified operation can also be changed regarding safety results (Avers & Johnson, 2011). Primarily, fatigue is a natural inference of human physiology. Since fatigue management has to be assigned responsibility amongst state, service providers and also the individual affected with the condition. Fatigue is generally unavoidable more so in a 24/7 industry like aviation. For the industry to flourish and maintain its standards as an ultra-safer industry, still the fatigue-associated issues must be adequately managed. It is worth taking note that fatigue is not only affected by all waking demanding activities (Rosekind et al., 1994)..From accidents analysis, fatigue has mostly been identified as the key contributing interfering with crew's capability factor to respond appropriately to a particular state. There are several pilots whom fatal incidents are related to fatigue (Rosekind et al., 1994).

Majority of workers, their allocated time for work is also part of the practical terms and the packages of remunerating established via the social legislation or the agreement within the industry. These conditions are not mainly agreed upon the safety and measures perspective. In the struggle to deal with fatigue is established (Avers & Johnson, 2011). First, there is essential for limiting pilots' number of hours. This shall mitigate the number of accidents claimed to fatigue. ICAO SARPs just wanted an operator responsible for bringing in the flight time limits ensuring fatigue condition could not threaten the safety of a flight in any way (Rosekind et al., 1994).

ICAO commanded states to ensure that flight time was indicated. Flight duty sessions and rest sessions for international aviation and cabin crew were to be shown such that the onus was as well to establish concerning the boundaries, to spread the message about fatigue risks and measures (Rosekind et al., 1994). Since ICAO had identified the actual flights and hours of duty since they had affirmed an impossibility for global limits identification.

Still the attempt to manage the issue of fatigue, ICSO SARPs strictly applied to international operations, many other states opted for the establishment of another flight which had duty time limitations for the domestically established procedures. States made use of similar flight and duty limitations for helicopter crew as just for the airline crew (Rosekind et al., 1994).

Flying through a jetliner has been the unique experience safety measure: no fatal crashes on the U.S assigned airline for seven years in the past. There is an excellent record-keeping in mind that approximately 30,000 flights took off daily. The main query was how flying became many reliable means. In previous accidents triggered critical and safety advancement (Stokes & Kite, 2017).

Upgrading in the level that could avoid a collision as much as possible with better ATC. The incident incurred $ 250 million in the upgrading of air traffic control (ATC) system. Then it was too much since long ever there had no collision between both airlines in the U.S in the past 47years. The crash triggered the establishment in 1958 of the Federal Aviation Agency which is now regarded as the administration overseeing air safety measures (Rosekind et al., 1994).

The further modification had room for implementation. This occurred after a small private plane wandered in Los Angeles terminal control area. 86 people lost their lives. The FAA required a small aircraft that would enter the control area and use the transponders-electronic devices that were of use in broadcasting position and also the altitude location to controllers. Eventually, airlines were required to have TCAS II avoiding the collision (Rosekind et al., 1994).

The phenomena had primarily increased since the crew, and the passengers in the plane had high chances of piloting error. Fatigue generally, vary among pilots since they all operate under unpredictable working hours with long duty periods, thus insufficient sleep (Caldwell, 1997). The factors mentioned could incidentally occur about the same time; therefore, a combination of the elements could highly lead to sleep deprivation condition. Regulators still work on throughout trying all they could to prevent fatigue by applying the measures outlined above; limiting the number of hours for the pilot that is allowed to fly over certain moments (Stokes & Kite, 2017).

A study presented at FAA symposium in July shows that approximately 7% of the civil aviation accidents that occur are much attributed to the fatigue of pilots. Sixteen years ago due to fatigue, 250 fatalities were claimed by death in the air carrier accident (Caldwell, 1997).This had been estimated to by narrowing down to symptoms that relate with fatigue in such incidents are a slower time of reaction, difficulties in focusing on tasks thus lead to procedural mistakes, lapsing in attention, incapable of anticipating occurrences, higher toleration risk, forgetful, and declined decision -making ability during such incidents (Stokes & Kite, 2017). All these impacts are connected to the circadian rhythm and amount of time awake. Thus, it is automatic that performance is much affected due to both factors.

Research by FAA shows that 55 human -factor aviation incidents analyzed from 1978 to 1999 accidents were at a higher rate in proportionality to time that the captain was on duty. Thus, approximately 5.62% of human factors accidents happened to pilots who had been assigned on duty for 13 hours and above and 1 of pilot duty hours during that period (Caldwell, 1997). The treatment recommended for such fatigue syndrome is conventional medicine supporting for dietary and lifestyle adjustments just as outlined as the first line of defence against fatigue. Individual persons encountering occasional fatigue symptoms might benefit the short term use of caffeine; thus, people tend to get more alert with less tired, and the co-ordination is boosted (Caldwell, 1997). Nevertheless, such should be taken under precautions since over usage of the drug results to a severe sleep disorder.

Conclusion

In conclusion, to understand the initial step is the vital effect fatigue can have on the flight safety to the quantification of time within the airline compound. Today, the airlines' management is struggling to ensure that a balance between rests with duty sessions is achieved since it is striving for maximum crew productivity. Nevertheless, fatigue appears like a limitation demanding for an increased consideration.

References

Avers, K., & Johnson, W. B. (2011). A review of federal aviation administration fatigue research. Aviation Psychology and Applied Human Factors.

Caldwell Jr, J. A. (1997). Fatigue in the aviation environment: An overview of the causes and effects as well as recommended countermeasures. Aviation, space, and environmental medicine, 68(10), 932-938.

Caldwell, J., & Caldwell, J. L. (2016). Fatigue in aviation: A guide to staying awake at the stick. Routledge.

Hoffman, M. E., & Hoffman, P. C. (2001). Corrosion and fatigue research-structural issues and relevance to naval aviation. International Journal of Fatigue, 23, 1-10.

Rosekind, M. R., Gander, P. H., Miller, D. L., Gregory, K. B., Smith, R. M., Weldon, K. J., ... & Lebacqz, J. V. (1994). Fatigue in operational settings: examples from the aviation environment. Human factors, 36(2), 327-338.

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Kevin_Gregory2/publication/15128044_Fatigue_in_operational_settings_Examples_from_the_aviation_environment/links/00b495283be324d650000000.pdf

Stokes, A. F., & Kite, K. (2017). Flight stress: Stress, fatigue and performance in aviation. Routledge.