Recurring themes in this edition of CHIRP ATFB 158, October 2026, are fatigue, and the way rostering apps and loosely worded Ops Manuals push a burden onto individual crew. A second thread is trust: people lose confidence in internal reporting when their reports are simply read and closed without meaningful feedback.
FC5466 – Line Check Conduct: A training captain’s aggressive interventions during a captain’s approach brief undermined his performance.
FC5426 – FTLs and duty periods routinely exceeded: 24-hour shifts are the norm, sometimes extended to 30 hours or more through discretion, within a bullying culture.
FC5423 – “CAA has approved it”: A pilot questioned 120-minute ETOPS operations on a freighter without approval.
FC5429 – App not up to standard: The rostering app allows poor crew pairings, makes unexplained changes, gives no clear FTL visibility and crashes.
FC5430 – Pressure to work on days off: Pilots get incentivised texts asking them to work during leave, which erodes their recovery time.
FC5431 – Pressure to check app during crew rest: Crew must check the app 120 minutes before report time, which effectively puts them on standby.
FC5432 – Commander’s discretion: A first officer’s rest was reduced without the commander being consulted, and his report was simply closed.
FC5433 – Car park disruption: Changes to the drop-off area turned a 5-minute crew bus transfer into up to 45 minutes, eating into rest.
FC5442 – Challenging CRM situation: Splitting flight and cabin crew across hotels, with cabin crew waiting over three hours for rooms, fuelled resentment and fatigue.
FC5448 – Landing gear locking pins: Ramp agents fitted gear pins and started the APU without engineering sign-off.
FC5463 – Concerned passenger: only one pilot in the cockpit: A passenger saw a pilot socialising in the galley for about 45 minutes.
Photo source: CHIRP