Sleepy Pilots Want Trimmed Schedules

Airline pilots are seeing their flying hours approach the federally mandated limit, and many of them have had enough, the Wall Street Journal reports. Safety experts agree that the current regulations, in place since the 1960s, don't reflect current knowledge about the dangers of fatigue. But penny-pinching airlines keep pushing their pilots' limits.

From "micro sleep," when open-eyed people become unresponsive for several seconds or minutes, to forgetting routine tasks like extending wing flaps, the consequences of putting tired pilots in the air can be potentially deadly. This year, a flight from Honolulu overshot its destination of Hilo by 26 miles while air-traffic controllers tried for 18 minutes to wake its unresponsive pilots. (More pilot fatigue stories.)