Chennai: DGCA revises rest time of pilots

Chennai: Keeping in view the aviation security risks, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has increased the weekly rest period and night rest period while revising the maximum flying time, flight duty period and number of flight crew landings.

The revised Flight Duty Time Limits (FDTL) rules mandate an increase in the weekly rest period for flight crew from 36 hours to 48 hours, to ensure adequate time to recover from cumulative fatigue.

In the revised rules, the definition of night has been revised from the period 0000-0600 hours, which was earlier 0000-0500 hours. This increase of one hour during the morning will ensure adequate rest and also align the night duty period which includes the window of circadian low (WOCL) from 0200-0600 hours or the time during which the circadian body clock cycle is at its lowest. It happens. Terms of vigilance.

For night flight operations the maximum flying time and maximum flight duty period have been restricted to 8 hours flying time and 10 hours flying duty period respectively and the number of landings has been restricted to only two landings as against the maximum permissible 6 landings. Is. Previous rules during night operations.

All operators must submit quarterly fatigue reports. It has been determined that Fatigue Report will be non-punitive and adhere to a privacy policy.

The amended FDTL regulation is an important step towards the adoption of new Fatigue Risk Management System (FRMS) implementation in India.

FRMS is a data-driven approach to enhance flight crew fatigue monitoring and reporting. The transition to the FRMS framework will require collaboration with various aviation stakeholders such as the regulator, airline operators and flight crew to enforce strict monitoring, record keeping and reporting to ensure adherence to the FRMS regime in the future. Diligently demonstrated by all stakeholders.