In mid-August I am traveling to Borneo on Malaysia Airlines, incidentally, so look forward to a trip report and sundry ravings about Malaysia's in-flight hospitality, which, should the accounts of others hold true, is world-class. The other day I called the airline with a question about the departure time and out of nowhere the woman asked me what kind of meal I prefer on the leg from Newark to Dubai. I'm flying economy, and it hadn't dawned on me that I might have a choice, let alone be asked about it over the phone, a month before I leave. Most pilots would ask for the Atkins meal, but I tell her "vegetarian."

The woman says, "Western-style or Indian-style?"

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Last week, the news told the story of a pilot caught napping on a flight from the Bahamas. Is exhaustion among pilots a concern? If so, why not allow a pilot to sleep during the flight if a copilot is present? (And you can't tell me that pilots flying from EWR to LAX don't doze off.)

Before I run with this, first recheck your notions of pilot and copilot. This might seem a peevish digression, but it's something that always rubs me: The first officer -- "copilot," if you must -- is not on hand as some kind of helpful apprentice. The captain does not say to his grateful underling, "Here, son, how about you take it for a minute." Both crew members are capable of flying the airplane in all regimes of flight -- takeoffs, landings and everything in between -- and normally do so in alternating turns.

Getting to the question, if you're hoping for some behind-the-scenes dirt and scandalous firsthand accounts of crew members nodding off over the ocean, you can stop reading. I'll leave that for Dateline or Fox. Indeed, news magazines seized on last week's nervously amusing story of a pilot caught napping by a passenger's camcorder. The company involved was a tiny, Florida-based airline with a single, 16-seat turboprop (not even a cockpit door). The airline's name does not deserve mention because, frankly, the whole thing was ridiculous.

It's my somewhat hesitant opinion that pilots should be allowed to nap, but I doubt the FAA will ever allow it because of public perception issues. There's also some merit to the idea that forcing two pilots to stay awake lessens the odds of both of them falling asleep. On longer flights, don't forget, sleep breaks are allowed, but only when auxiliary pilots -- they too are fully qualified -- are brought along to take their place.

While a minor issue at the larger airlines, pilot fatigue at cargo carriers, where back-of-the-clock rotations are par, and at lower-rung regionals and charter outfits, where schedules can be punishing, is a concern. Not a major concern, but certainly a more substantial one than pilots smoking crack or shooting heroin. The FAA realizes this, but chooses to put its resources into drug testing and other politically expedient issues with limited economic repercussions (unless you're CEO of a testing firm raking it in thanks to mandatory sampling), while it analyzes NASA studies on circadian rhythms to determine if exhaustion could possibly be a detriment to job performance.

In no way am I advocating pilots be allowed to intoxicate themselves in violation of law or common sense, but ask yourself this: Whom would you prefer at the controls of your plane on a stormy night -- a pilot who smoked a joint three days ago, or one who had six hours of sleep prior to a 12-hour workday in which he's flown seven legs? The first pilot has indulged in a career-ending toke; the second is in full compliance with the regs.

The trouble isn't flight hours, it's duty hours. Surprisingly, short-haul domestic pilots are those most affected. A 14-hour nonstop to Tokyo might be physically draining, but at least it's a single shot, with designated rest breaks and the relatively low workload of protracted high-altitude calm. The up-and-down rigors of Chicago-Indianapolis-Detroit-Cleveland are what expend a crew's strength and mental acuity. Having done a bit of both, I find intercontinental flying not nearly as enervating as multileg hops.

A domestic pilot is held to no more than eight hours of flight on a given day, but when the weather goes bad and delays pile on, that can entail 12, 13, even 16 hours of actual time on the job. He or she can be subject to long stretches of sit-around between takeoffs, and that's when fatigue really begins to build. Additionally, minimum layover periods do not include transport to and from hotels or time allowances for meals. On a 10-hour overnight, much of your allotted rest is consumed by bookend transport -- it can be an hour's trip from terminal to Holiday Inn -- and chasing down food at 1 a.m.

Regulatory loopholes have been tightened in the past few years, but these small changes didn't come quickly or easily. Whenever government tries to take a bite out of this problem, the Air Transport Association (ATA), the lobbying arm of the airlines, begins sharpening its claws and swinging its propaganda apparatus into action.

During hearings in August 1999, ATA senior vice president John Meenan got a storm brewing when he said, "There has never been a scheduled commercial airline accident attributed to pilot fatigue -- not one, not ever." A testament to pilots doing a good job under lousy conditions, if you ask me, and not exactly a justification for legally sanctioned somnambulation on the flight deck. So much for an ounce of prevention.

"Fatigue never shows up in autopsies," quipped back Minnesota Democrat Jim Oberstar.

What brought the hearings on was the crash of American Airlines flight 1420, which two months earlier slid off the runway at Little Rock, Ark., during a thunderstorm, killing 11 people, including the captain. He had been on duty for more than 13 hours. The NTSB partly attributed the incident to crew fatigue. At least two accidents involving nonscheduled, U.S.-registered cargo jets, one at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the other in Kansas City, Mo., have been blamed more directly on pilot tiredness.

Clearly this is one of those difficult to quantify factors after a crash, and as I said it's more of a cargo/regional/charter phenomenon than the norm at Delta, United or American, where work rules are more pleasant. Collective bargaining agreements usually add buffers to the more skeletal federal requirements. I don't know, I've endured lifestyles at airlines both low- and high-profile. To me, an assignment at the latter is, by comparison, like getting a free day pass to a fancy European health spa. In other words, nervous passengers shouldn't feel inclined to, um, lose sleep over the matter.

I should also applaud one of my former employers, a certain airline that had a policy whereby fatigued pilots could take themselves off the schedule with little more than a sick day marked against them, no questions asked. It was a much appreciated and rarely abused provision. After Little Rock, American adopted an almost identical program.

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