Fatigue Risk Management - SM4 Safety Articles & Resources

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aircraft landing

The Very Real Danger of Hidden Risk

We’ve all seen the charts. The ones that pop up in every safety briefing, every recurrent training module, every postmortem after a close call. Takeoff and landing eat up the lion’s share of accidents. Loss of control in flight. Weather. Mechanicals. The stats are clean, the bars are colorful and the takeaway is always the same: Pay attention during the critical phases and you’ll keep the shiny side up.

Posted on May 6, 2026
piggy bank

Does Banking Sleep Work?

Recall the last time you were on a flight or duty that cut into your natural daily sleep pattern. Chances are you were annoyed at the sleep deprivation but leaned in to combat the fatigue stress with a combination of operational risk controls, personal fatigue countermeasures and grit.

Posted on February 3, 2026
city street

Arriving at Actionable Human Factors Metrics

Marketers use clever metrics to measure the size of their target audience or to gauge how well their advertising is performing. Want to know how many people are walking the streets of New York City? Look up subway ridership numbers. In aviation, we also collect data to quantify our understanding of performance.

Posted on September 26, 2025
Aircraft mechanic inspects a jet in hangar at airport

Let’s Get Personal (About Risk)

Aviation loves to talk about risk management. Insurance companies, manufacturers, and organizations all fully embrace the concept and know that to make it work on the line, we must get people at all levels and from all functional areas to embrace it. Tools such as the Flight Risk Assessment Tool (FRAT) are noble attempts, but at the core of it all lies the simple fact that people, as individuals, view risk differently.

Posted on December 10, 2024
frustrated mom with daughter on cellphone in background

More Than a Box Tick: Achieving Operational Flexibility With an FRMS

Moms know best. This adage holds true in many domains of family life—allergies, grades, crushes. When thinking about aviation safety, though, perhaps the best illustration drawn from mom’s expertise is…

Posted on July 8, 2024
Stressed female pilot sitting at the airport.

Sleep Duration Is a Key Factor in Predicting On-Duty Alertness

After a poor night of sleep, it is common to feel tired, sluggish and even irritable. More important for air operators, poor sleep is also associated with increased fatigue—which can directly impact employee performance and put lives at risk.

Posted on September 5, 2023
Female aviator in uniform with her head down feeling fatigued and stressed.

Understanding the Effect of Increased Aviation Demand and Fatigue on Pilots

The COVID-19 pandemic has taken its toll on the aviation industry, with travel restrictions and flight cancellations severely impacting air travel over the past three years. Business aviation was one of the most impacted air travel sectors, as organizations opted for virtual meetings or found other ways to engage remotely with their clients and colleagues.

Posted on April 4, 2023
runner on track

Managing Fatigue with Quantitative Data

It may be November, but the clouds are clearing for air operators. People are flying again. Business meetings are being scheduled live. And the busy holiday season is coming up soon. Is your flight department ready?

Posted on November 2, 2021
caffeine power

Caffeine Will Enable Me To Power Through My Day. Right?

Worrying about the current public health crisis and how it affects our jobs, our lives and our health is something that all of us have experienced to some degree over the past year. Unsurprisingly, an increasing number of people have been reporting sleep disturbances since the COVID-19 pandemic began.

Posted on June 7, 2021