Text I Air traffic controllers asleep on the job…still Michael J. Breus, Ph.D., in Sleepnewzzz Here’s some news of workers sleeping on the job that’s downright scary. A news invest

Text I

Air traffic controllers asleep on the job…still

Michael J. Breus, Ph.D., in Sleepnewzzz

Here’s some news of workers sleeping on the job that’s downright scary. A news investigation produced a story and footage of air traffic controllers at Westchester County Airport sleeping during their shifts. The video, provided to the news outlet by an employee in the air traffic control tower at Westchester Airport, also shows controllers reading and using laptops and cell phones while on duty. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) bans its controllers from use of cell phones, personal reading material and electric devices while on duty. Sleeping is prohibited anywhere in air traffic control towers.

All of these violations are alarming and dangerous, and pose a serious public safety problem. It is important, I believe, to separate the issue of air traffic controllers sleeping on the job from their choice to play with laptops and cell phones when they are supposed to be working. The video images showing air traffic controllers slumped over and sleeping at their stations is truly frightening. But the issue of sleep deprivation among air traffic controllers is a very real one, and means that some instances of falling asleep—however dangerous and wrong—is not entirely the controllers’ fault, or even within their control.

Unfortunately this is not a new problem. We’ve seen several instances of air traffic controllers falling asleep on duty in recent months.

In response to these cases, the FAA in 2011 revised its regulations for air traffic controllers to include additional time for rest between shifts. The FAA:

• Raised the minimum amount of time off between work shifts to 9 hours from 8 hours
• Prohibited air traffic controllers from swapping shifts without having a minimum of 9 hours off in between shifts
• Increased supervisor coverage in air traffic control towers during late night and early morning shifts
• Prohibited air traffic controllers from picking up an overnight shift after a day off

These adjustments are a step in the right direction, but they don’t go far enough. Managing schedules for shift workers in these high-pressure jobs where public safety is at stake is too important to settle for improvements that don’t actually solve the problem.

Shift workers of all types face challenges to getting enough sleep while managing long hours, overnight shifts, and changing schedules that fluctuate between day and night. Research shows that:

• People who engage in shift work get less sleep overall than those of us who work more regular hours
• Shift workers are at higher risk for illness and chronic disease
• The sleep deprivation associated with shift work increase the risk of accidents, injuries and mistakes in high-profile, public safety related industries like medicine and law enforcement, as well as air traffic control

In addition to making people more prone to accidents and injury, sleep deprivation causes a number of negative effects—both physical and psychological—that can impair the on-the-job performance of air traffic controllers and other shift workers. Sleep deprivation:

• Slows reaction time
• Interferes with memory
• Causes fatigue
• Compromises judgment
• Impairs the ability to retain new information

I think we can all agree that we don’t want the people responsible for guiding our planes to be sluggish, slow-reacting, forgetful, fatigued and of questionable judgment. But that’s exactly what being sleep deprived can make them!

It’s the FAAs responsibility to create workplace regulations that enable air traffic controllers to get the rest they need. This can include not just mandating reasonable time off between shifts, but also giving controllers breaks during shifts and allowing them to nap on their breaks. There are also some basic things that the controllers themselves—or any shift workers—can do to help avoid sleep deprivation:

• Make sure to get adequate rest before a shift begins. Take a nap before work, if need be.
• Limit your reliance on caffeine. While it’s okay as an occasional pick-me-up, coffee and caffeinated beverages are not substitutes for adequate sleep. And caffeine can interfere with your sleep when you actually want and need to be sleepy.
• Keep a strong and consistent sleep routine both during your workdays and your days off. It’s not always easy, but shift workers in particular need to build their off-duty schedules around making sure they get the sleep they need.

Similarly to the recent changes in health care, the FAA is moving in the right direction to help its employees get the sleep they need to do their jobs safely. As this latest incident at Westchester Airport confirms, there is a great deal of work still to be done. And it’s in everyone’s best—and safest—interest that progress continues to be made.

Sweet Dreams,

Michael J. Breus, PhD
The Sleep Doctor™
www.thesleepdoctor.com

Available at: <http://www.theinsomniablog.com/the_insomnia_ blog/2012/03/

air-traffic-controllers-asleep-on- -the-jobstill.html> Adapted. Retrieved on: July 25, 2012.

Text II

President Obama to Sleepy Air Controllers:
‘Better Do Your Job’

Lisa Stark and Andrew Springer

President Obama lectured air traffic controllers in an exclusive interview with ABC News, impressing on them the enormous responsibility of safeguarding flying passengers and telling them, “You better do your job.”

The president spoke after several controllers were caught asleep on the job and the man in charge of air traffic control, Hank Krakowski, resigned on Thursday.

“The individuals who are falling asleep on the job, that’s unacceptable,” the president told ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos in an exclusive interview on Thursday. “The fact is, when you’re responsible for the lives and safety of people up in the air, you better do your job. So, there’s an element of individual responsibility that has to be dealt with.”

Five controllers have been suspended for apparently napping on the job while planes were trying to land at their airports.

The president said a full review of air traffic control work shifts is under way.

“What we also have to look at is air traffic control systems. Do we have enough back up? Do we have enough people? Are they getting enough rest time?” Obama said.

He added, however, “But it starts with individual responsibility.”

In March, two commercial airliners were forced to land unassisted at Washington, D.C.’s Reagan National Airport after a controller apparently fell asleep.

Just days later, two controllers at the Preston Smith International Airport in Lubbock, Texas, did not hand off control of a departing aircraft to another control center and it took repeated attempts for them to be reached.

On Feb. 19, an air traffic controller in Knoxville, Tenn., slept during an overnight shift. Sources told ABC News that the worker even took pillows and cushions from a break room to build a make-shift bed on the control room floor.

And this month, there were two more incidents. A controller fell asleep on the job in Seattle, and days later a controller in Reno was snoozing when a plane carrying a critically ill passenger was seeking permission to land.

The FAA and the controller’s union have been studying the fatigue issue for over a year and their report finds that “acute fatigue occurs on a daily basis,” and “fatigue can occur at any time, on any shift.”

Sleep experts suggest midshift naps

Some sleep experts said controllers are ripe for fatigue because they often bounce between day shifts and night shifts. “When we’re constantly having to adjust to different work schedules, our body is always playing catch up,” said Philip Gehrman, Director of the Behavioral Sleep Program at the University of Pennsylvania.

Controllers on the night shift have another hurdle: they often work in dim light conditions with little stimulation between radio calls. “That’s exactly the kind of type of task that’s hardest to maintain, when you’re at the wrong point in your biological rhythms,” said Gehrman.

One recommendation from the government study suggests allowing controllers to take scheduled naps, with breaks as long as two and a half hours to allow for sleeping and waking up.

Sleep experts said a long break in the middle of an eight hour overnight shift would help, but it might be a tough sell politically. It has taken decades to try to come up with new fatigue rules for pilots and it may not be any easier when it comes to controllers.

Available at: <http://abcnews.go.com/Travel/obama-air-traffic-

-controllers-individual-responsibility/story?id=13382280#.UA__ XpFceSo>. Retrieved on: July 25, 2012.

A comparison between Texts I and II reveals that