Flight Attendant Fatigue, Part IV: Analysis of Incident Reports

Federal Aviation Administration
December 2009

Download the publication: Crew Fatigue IV CAMI 2009

Voluntary safety reporting is one method by which aviation personnel can report safety issues to their airline and the Federal Aviation Administration. The Aviation Safety Reporting System (ASRS) is a program managed by the National Aeronautics & Space Administration (NASA) Ames Research Center. This study reviewed flight attendant reports from the ASRS database to identify the frequency of fatigue reports and the conditions under which fatigue occurred.

During June 2008, 2,628 cabin crew reports were downloaded from the NASA ASRS Web site for reports made between January 1990 and December 2007. CAMI researchers reviewed each fullform report narrative for possible contributors to fatigue, or indicators of fatigue. Although the overall number of flight attendant ASRS reports for which full-form coding was completed has decreased over the last 3 years, both total flight attendant reporting and the number of full-form narratives related to fatigue have increased substantially. This voluntary data allows regulators and operators to discover potential problems in the aviation industry before they result in a mishap. The results of this review indicate that flight attendant fatigue may be occurring more frequently and warrant more attention.

Kali Holcomb
Katrina Avers
Lena Dobbins
Joy Banks
Lauren Blackwell
Thomas Nesthus
Civil Aerospace Medical Institute
Federal Aviation Administration
Oklahoma City, OK 73125
December 2009
Final Report
DOT/FAA/AM-09/25
Office of Aerospace Medicine
Washington, DC 20591
OK-10-

Final Report
DOT/FAA/AM-09/25
Office of Aerospace Medicine
Washington, DC 20591
OK-10-