Originally Posted by
stoki
This investigation is starting to focus on fatigue.... but not the fatigue caused the the standard 14 hour duty days that airlines and their scheduling departments take ADVANTAGE of, but fatigue caused by commuting, something a vast number of pilots do to get to work. This is going in the wrong direction...
You can legally do a 16 hour duty day, get an 8 hour overnight, then back for another long day. Most commutes don't approach that level of stress...they need to fix the existing FAR's before they talk about new ones.
Ultimately there is no legal basis for either the FAA or the company to tell you where and how to spend your days off. Outlawing pilots commuting is about as ludicrous as outlawing pilots having children...I can tell you from experience that small babies are much less conducive to rest than the typical commute.
With that said, the Colgan FO's self-determined schedule was worse than worst-case legal rest. Sleep while jumpseating on multiple redeye legs does not count IMO.