It was a light night. I slept most of it. Plan was to bow out if I had been up all night.
Even with a slow night, if your sleep is interrupted, it will impair your reaction time. A routine local flight can go south quickly and unexpectedly. You don't want to be in an urgent situation wishing you felt more rested.
Here is an excerpt from AOPA Pilot magazine May 2006 Volume 49 / Number 5 by Bruce Landsberg. The article was called "Tired?"
"Here is a classic fatigue accident. A college student who was enrolled at a Part 141 school in the Midwest embarked on a long cross-country training flight. On July 7, 2004, he departed Grand Forks, North Dakota, at 6:15 p.m. and flew a Piper Warrior to Airlake Airport in Minnesota, on the first leg of his cross-country flight arriving at 8:30. The second leg of the flight concluded at Minneapolis' Crystal Airport at 9:30. The aircraft was refueled while the pilot met a friend and went to a restaurant for dinner. As an aside, he had a high-carbohydrate meal that, in all probability, raised his blood sugar two hours later to help induce sleep. He departed Minneapolis at 11:55 p.m. and climbed to 4,500 feet msl; he contacted flight service about 12:30 a.m. to open his flight plan back to Grand Forks.
The pilot reported his first VFR checkpoint, missed the second checkpoint, but continued on course using VOR and GPS navigation. He visually identified Detroit Lakes, Minnesota, but did not remember anything else until he opened his eyes in a cornfield, having been thrown clear of the wreckage. Radar data indicated that the Warrior's altitude varied from 4,200 to 4,800 feet msl and the aircraft was on course until 1:26 a.m. It then entered a gradual left spiral, completing six turns before radar contact was lost around 1:33 a.m. at about 1,900 feet msl (less than 400 feet agl).
The aircraft was destroyed and no preimpact malfunctions could be found. There was fuel in both tanks, the engine was running at the time of impact, and there were no deficiencies in the muffler or exhaust system to indicate possible carbon monoxide poisoning.
The pilot held a private pilot certificate with just more than 90 hours of flight time. He had eight hours in the previous 30 days and total night-flight experience also was at about eight hours. Why was he flying so late? To complete night-flying training requirements; summer civil twilight does not end until 10 p.m. in the North Country.
The pilot's 72-hour history prior to the accident is educational. On July 6 he woke up at 8 a.m. and went to bed at 2 a.m. on July 7. His alarm clock went off at 6 a.m. after only four hours of sleep, but he continued to sleep until about 7:30 a.m. He reported for class at 10 a.m. and ate at around 3 p.m. He went to the airport at 3:30 p.m., completed cross-country flight planning, and reviewed the flight plan with his flight instructor. The flight was delayed about an hour and 20 minutes when his aircraft would not start and a replacement had to be found.
As with many of us, busy lives and other activities interfere with flying. College flight students have every bit as demanding a schedule as the professional pilots that they hope to become. With class schedules, flight lessons, study periods, and part-time jobs to pay the tuition, fatigue is one of the great concerns of many university flight safety directors. The university implemented a duty-time policy for students, and every aviation safety class has a briefing on this accident to warn of the dangers of flight when tired. And like the real world, there is a constant balancing between conflicting needs. It's not smart to ignore the physical aspects of piloting and that includes health, food, water, and rest. Guess Mother was right again. If you doubt it go look at the accident statistics"
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