[Author’s Name]
[Institution’s Name]
Essay on Fatigue As A Human Factor In Air Traffic Control
Air traffic controllers often experience fatigue on the job, due to shift work, workload, and stress. Performance impairment resulting from fatigue is an important concern for system safety and requires countermeasures. Air traffic controllers (ATCs) often experience fatigue on the job due to shift work, workload, and stress. Until now, no critical incident has been directly attributed to fatigue, but fatigue is a factor that cannot be easily assessed after the occurrence of an incident. Still, it was observed that 21% of reported incidents in the Aviation Safety Reporting System (ASRS) mention factors related to fatigue (for both pilots and ATCs).
The impairment of ATC performance due to fatigue is thus an important concern for system safety and requires the development of countermeasures. The goal of this document is to review the research literature on fatigue among ATCs and to present recommendations with respect to potentially viable countermeasures to reduce the impact of fatigue in air traffic control operations. In response, the Air Force has initiated a variety of efforts to enhance the safety and effectiveness of Air Force personnel and operations. Among these are strategies aimed at reducing aircraft mishaps as well as both on-duty and off-duty motor vehicle accidents.
Since both types of safety hazards are caused more often by human error than by equipment and/or structural failures, the primary remedies in these areas are focused on reducing risks by modifying behavior. Key to the accomplishment of positive results will be implementation of effective risk-reduction training followed by complete command support of better and safer work environments. (Hopkin, V.D. (1995)
Many airports have 24-hour-a-day air traffic control operational requirements, thereby requiring some controllers to work overnight. Shift work has the potential to disrupt the circadian rhythms of the body and sometimes impair work performance, raising concerns for the safe....
