U.S. safety board issues wake-up call on sleep disorder
Source: By JOAN
LOWY (AP)
Published: October 21st 2009
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WASHINGTON — Safety investigators have sent government
agencies a wake-up call about sleep apnea, a disorder that's showing
up in a wide range of transportation accidents.
The National Transportation Safety Board said Tuesday that
commercial truck and bus drivers and merchant ship pilots should be
screened for sleep apnea. The board made similar recommendations for
airline pilots and train operators earlier this year.
In letters to the Coast Guard and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety
Administration, the board recommended requiring medical examiners to
question drivers and ship pilots about the disorder — which involves
disruptions in breathing during sleep — and to develop programs to
identify the problem.
Sleep apnea denies people the rest they need, and it has been found
to be a factor in incidents involving every transportation mode,
NTSB Chairman Deborah Hersman said in the letters.
The board has sent similar recommendations to the Federal Aviation
Administration and to local transit agencies across the country.
Among the incidents cited in the letters:
- In January 2008, a motorcoach carrying passengers returning
from a weekend ski trip went too fast around a curve on a rural
Utah highway. The bus went careening down a mountainside,
killing nine people and injuring 43 others. The driver suffered
from sleep apnea and had trouble using a device to regulate his
breathing while sleeping in the days before the accident.
- The same month, two go! airlines pilots conked out for at
least 18 minutes during a midmorning flight from Honolulu to
Hilo, Hawaii, as their plane continued to cruise past its
destination and out to sea. Air traffic controllers were finally
able to raise the pilots, who turned the plane around with its
40 passengers and landed it safely. The captain was later
diagnosed with sleep apnea.
- A trolley train crashed into another train in May 2008 in
Newton, Mass. Investigators said the driver probably fell asleep
because she suffered from sleep apnea, but it could not be
proved because she died.
- In November 2001, a train engineer drove through a stop
warning in Clarkston, Mich., striking another train and killing
two crew members. He was found to be a very high risk for sleep
apnea, but he had not been diagnosed or treated.
In June 1995, a cruise ship maneuvering through Alaska's Inside
Passage was grounded on a submerged but charted and marked rock by a
pilot later diagnosed with sleep apnea. The ship was carrying about
2,200 people.
A 2002 study that found 7 percent of adults have at least a moderate
form of the disorder, but people often don't know they have it.
The motor carrier administration is already considering a rule to
tighten its standards for medical certification of commercial
drivers, Transportation Department spokeswoman Sasha Johnson said.
The FAA is also in the process of drafting new rules to broadly
address pilot fatigue and will consider the board's recommendations,
spokeswoman Laura Brown said.
The Coast Guard is examining the recommendations and will pursue
possible safety strategies, spokeswoman Lisa Novak said.
The letters noted the Federal Railroad Administration is also
working on drafting new regulations to address the problem.
Mark Rosenker, a former NTSB acting chairman, said the issue has
long been a concern of the board, but the go! airlines incident
jarred board members.
"Obviously when two pilots fall asleep in the cockpit and they miss
their stop, that triggers a lot of interest at NTSB," Rosenker said.
On the Net:
National Transportation Safety Board:
http://www.ntsb.gov |
