Source:
By JOAN LOWY (AP)Published: October 21st 2009
Printer friendly version
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