FATIGUE IN THE AIRCRAFT MAINTENANCE ENVIRONMENT

Maintenance personnel fatigue is a serious issue, one that has typically focused on continuous control tasks, such as operating an aircraft, with falling asleep being the main threat.  From a maintenance perspective, sleep (or a micro-sleep), is not the threat—but rather errors caused by impaired mental functioning, such as FOD left in an engine, missing steps in a repair process, unsecured access panels/cowlings, fitting of wrong parts, etc., all of which could have serious consequences.