Recently, a study was conducted by the researchers of University College London (UCL) and its alarming findings suggest that one out five pilots admitted to falling asleep on duty and most of them had cited fatigue as a major reason behind this.

The study was funded by the British pilots' union, Balpa and it also anticipated this situation to be getting worse after the approval of new flying hours European proposals unlike what European authorities opine.

To conduct this survey, standard questionnaires were sent to several pilots working for British airline and after compiling all the responses, it found that 45% reported to be suffering from significant fatigue in the cockpit. One out of five pilots was found to believe that their abilities were getting compromised if they had to fly more than once a week.

The most shocking finding came out when a pilot of some other UK airline stated that he and his co-pilot had succumbed to a nap during a flight. He added that this happened because he and his co-pilot could not sleep enough during their rest period.

He opines that the worst happens when the aircraft alters height on its own after getting disconnected with the autopilot which could be extremely dangerous.

He added, “Now there are warning systems that tell you are deviating from the correct altitude but they are not excessively loud. It would be easy enough to sleep through that, and I probably don't need to tell you what the consequences of that are”.