USA Today: Airlines Need to Step Up Safety Training for Employees

Asleep at the Wheel: Here’s something to think about as you buckle up for that next business flight. According to an article in USA Today, worker fatigue in the airline industry poses a continual safety problem. The article reports that hundreds of airline industry workers—from pilots to mechanics and air traffic controllers—have committed mistakes on the job as a result of fatigue. That includes at least six reported cases of airline pilots who dozed off during flights. Both a pilot and co-pilot reportedly nodded off as their plane was making its descent to land at an airport near Washington. Although the reported incidents represent a fraction of the more than 40 million airline flights covered during the period, the article notes that federal National Transportation Safety Board has linked “pilot fatigue to 10 commercial aviation accidents” since 1993, killing 260 people. The article is based on an analysis of federal airline safety records dating to 2003 and that was compiled by NASA.