Tech is Perplexing Fatigue Research

New procedures and requirements for commercial pilots are aimed at reducing the risk of fatigue during flights. It has been seen that fatigued aircraft crew are less able to react to situations during flight, and so researchers have looked into the causes of, and ways to prevent fatigue.

The problem with this research is that the aviation industry is impeccably safe. There is a  0.00000032% rate of aircraft accidents globally, in part due to the increase in sophisticated technologies.

This rarity of accidents is a testament to technological progress, especially improvements in airframe construction, propulsion mechanics, and avionics design. It also means proving that fatigue reduces safety is difficult, because those technologies lessen the potential fallout. The highly automated nature of flying today means aircraft flown by weary pilots will almost certainly still reach their destinations safely.

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