Nodding off at the wheel of a car is frightening enough. A new survey suggests that something similar happens with worrying regularity on the flight decks of European airliners. Asked by the European Cockpit Association (ECA) about the past month, over 75% of respondents reported dozing off involuntarily for a few seconds, a so-called microsleep, at the controls.
The poll was run in August by safety consultancy Baines Simmons and drew answers from about 7,200 captains and first officers in 32 countries. Slightly more than 50% conceded that, during the quarter before the poll, they had taken charge of a flight that in hindsight they were too drained to operate. Roughly a quarter normally carry on regardless when worn out, and about one in six chooses a sick call instead.
The reasons are less about physiology than workplace culture. Fear of how management would react was the barrier cited most often, by 47% of respondents; others did not want to stand out or create problems for their employer. Barely 12% have faith in the tools their company provides for flagging tiredness. Captain Coen George of the ECA board put it bluntly: fear for one’s career means fatigue stays hidden and “the risk returns to the cockpit”.
Where a pilot works makes a big difference. Crews at Irish- and Malta-based carriers reported the most microsleeps and the deepest distrust. Two in five pilots at Spanish airlines said they normally fly when fatigued, compared with one in ten at British ones. Finland and the Netherlands were singled out as proof that a healthier reporting culture is possible.
Under EU safety law, every carrier must already track how tired its crews are and act on it. Ian Holder, who heads Baines Simmons, cautioned that the results capture pilots’ own experiences rather than measuring safety outcomes directly. Still, he noted, the picture has barely changed in three years of surveys, and that alone shows where attention is needed.
