Crew fatigue is likely more of a risk now than ever. This week both pilots of an Ethiopian Airlines 737 fell asleep at 37,000 feet overflew the airport in flight and were woken up by the autopilot disconnecting.
Boeing 737-800 ET-AOB was at 37,000 ft at FL370 when it was supposed to start the descent to Addis Ababa Bole Airport. Air Traffic Control tried to contact the crew several times without success. When the autopilot disconnected, the alarm woke up the pilots who reacted and finally started the descent to land
Fatigue is of particular concern among pilots because of “unpredictable work hours, long duty periods, circadian disruption, and insufficient sleep”. Airlines are constantly pushing pilots to fly the absolute maximum allowable hours
A Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) study of 55 human-factor aviation accidents from 1978 to 1999 concluded that the number of accidents increased proportionally to the amount of time the captain had been on duty. The accident proportion relative to exposure proportion rose from 0.79 (1–3 hours on duty) to 5.62 (more than 13 hours on duty).
Source – Airline Secret Exposed FB page