title: Pilot fatigue: relationships with departure and arrival times, flight duration, and direction.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Flight timing is expected to influence pilot fatigue because it determines the part of the circadian body clock cycle that is traversed during a flight. However the effects of flight timing are not well-characterized because field studies typically focus on specific flights with a limited range of departure times and have small sample sizes. The present project combined data from four studies, including 13 long-range and ultra-long range out-and-back trips across a range of departure and arrival times (237 pilots in 4-person crews, 730 flight segments, 1-3 d layovers).
  
  
  METHODS
  All studies had tripartite support and underwent independent ethical review. Sleep was monitored (actigraphy) from 3 d prior to ≥ 3 d post-trip. Preflight and at top of descent (TOD), pilots rated their sleepiness (Karolinska Sleepiness Scale) and fatigue (Samn-Perelli scale), and completed a psychomotor vigilance task (PVT) test. Mixed model ANOVA identified independent associations between fatigue measures and operational factors (domicile times of departure and arrival, flight duration and direction, landing versus relief crew).
  
  
  RESULTS
  Preflight subjective fatigue and sleepiness were lowest for flights departing 14:00-17:59. Total in-flight sleep was longest on flights departing 18:00-01:59. At TOD, fatigue and sleepiness were higher and PVT response speeds were slower on flights arriving 06:00-09:59 than on flights arriving later. PVT response speed at TOD was also faster on longer flights.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The findings indicate the influence of flight timing (interacting with the circadian body clock cycle), as well as flight duration, on in-flight sleep and fatigue measures at TOD.
authors.affiliation: Sleep/Wake Research Centre, Massey University, Wellington, New Zealand.
authors.forename: Philippa H
authors.initials: PH
authors.lastname: Gander
authors.forename: Hannah M
authors.initials: HM
authors.lastname: Mulrine
authors.forename: Margo J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: van den Berg
authors.forename: A Alexander T
authors.initials: AA
authors.lastname: Smith
authors.forename: T Leigh
authors.initials: TL
authors.lastname: Signal
authors.forename: Lora J
authors.initials: LJ
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.forename: Gregory
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Belenky
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000337:Aerospace Medicine; D000401:Aircraft; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology; D002940:Circadian Rhythm / Q000502:physiology; D005221:Fatigue / Q000503:physiopathology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D008991:Monitoring, Physiologic / Q000295:instrumentation; D009784:Occupational Diseases; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology; D012307:Risk Factors; D012892:Sleep Deprivation / Q000503:physiopathology; D013997:Time Factors; D014851:Wakefulness / Q000502:physiology; D014940:Work Schedule Tolerance; D016526:Workload