Australian air traffic controller caught napping

SYDNEY - Air traffic control staffing in Australia has been boosted and a new system introduced to manage fatigue after a controller was found asleep at the workstation, said a report from Australia's national transport safety investigator, reported Xinhua.

The approach controller was found asleep lying across two chairs with a blanket covering them at the Brisbane Air Traffic Services Centre in the northeastern state of Queensland on Dec 9, 2022, according to the report published by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) on Tuesday.

The report said that the controller, who was responsible for managing the Cairns Terminal Control Unit at the time, had worked multiple consecutive night shifts with reduced extended rest periods, resulting in sleep debt.

There was no traffic in the airspace of Cairns, which has a population of about 150,000, at the time the controller was found asleep and there were no scheduled flights until after their shift.

However, ATSB Chief Commissioner Angus Mitchell said that if the controller had been awoken by a radio broadcast their ability to manage any problems or conflicts likely would have been affected by sleep inertia.

"There were no negative consequences from this occurrence, but it does highlight areas for improvement in work scheduling and fatigue risk management," he said in a statement.

"Fatigue remains one of the most relevant ongoing concerns for safe transport, despite increased awareness across the transport sector," he said.

As a result, the government-owned Airservices Australia has increased its overall number of air traffic controllers.

Additionally, the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) has introduced changes to air traffic service fatigue risk management system requirements.

The ATSB said that CASA was working with Airservices to trial its system against the new requirements. - BERNAMA--XINHUA