The impact of cognitive fatigue on airline pilots performance

Purpose: Air transport is a highly regulated branch of aviation, but it continues to show occurrences where human error is present. Fatigue is now recognized as a hazard which degrades human performance and can put flight safety at risk. In this regard, the general objective of this study is to assess the impact of cognitive fatigue on airline pilots and how it can contribute to the occurrence of accidents and incidents. Methodology: Three airline pilots participated in the case study. The participants’ cognitive fatigue was monitored according to four methods, being two of them of a subjective nature – the sleep diary (SD) and the Samn-Perelli 7-Point Fatigue Scale (SPS), and the other two of an objective nature – the Psychomotor Vigilance Task (PVT) and the actigraphy (actiwatch ReadibandTM 5). During their flight duty periods (FDPs), the pilots’ performance was also assessed according to the score delivered by a fatigue management software (FAID®). Findings: The obtained results allowed to understand whether the pilots are aware of their alertness and to identify factors which affect their performance levels. Between the beginning and the end of each FDP, significant changes were observed concerning the assessment on the SPS scale, the reaction time (RT) and the fatigue score generated by the biomathematical models associated to the technique of the actigraphy and the software FAID®. Originality/value: The risk of accident or serious error was classified according to the four methodologies used. Thus, it is possible to verify if there is a correspondence between the different scales or if there are scales more conservative (with a higher associated risk) than others.