I could understand someone's skepticism about getting paid for a fatigue call under the circumstances given our remarkable $avety culture.

Not justifying it at all, but when you're paid as poorly as we are every dollar makes a difference.

His is a pretty unique situation that I believe needs to be addressed by the FAA or company. Maybe it has been but I haven’t seen it. How can the Captain ever answer that question for the FO? I’m not defending the CA in the above situation at all but what’s a CA supposed to do if they literally just walked into work and the company calls and asks to extend the FO who has been on duty for a few hours? I’d tell them I have no clue as to the fitness of someone else how about you call them? I’d refuse to answer the question. Part 117 is a complete joke.

That clears it up. Thank you. But it still seems weird that a captain who just shows up can answer this question for an FO that is approaching 12 hours of duty.

To answer a couple guys above and to clarify, as someone pointed out an FCIR is required for any refusal extension. But not the fatigue report and associated review, unless it’s fatigue related. In my situation, despite being extended, I was not fatigued. If I were, I would have called out fatigued. I even had financial incentive to do so, and the irop and rolling delays and pairing mods would have likely been adequate justification. But I couldn’t in good faith claim fatigue at that point in the evening when I actually felt ok. If I had to do an FCIR for an extension refusal, I would have cited safety as the reason, due to conditions (snow/ice), multiple schedule changes, multiple maintenance issues, the potential for even more enroute delays beyond my extension time window (real possibility as I was close) despite being off by the MOT, the potential for fatigue if I continued in those circumstances, especially if we got delayed further once under way. But at that moment in time I couldn’t honestly say I was fatigued.

Absolutely- Its the call you need to make and we dont do it enough. When you say fatigue to a scheduler, its game over- Enjoy your sleep and as RVR stated, in most circumstances, youll get pay protected.
Dont give them an inch.

With our work rules and all the circadian swapping in our PLANNED pairings, I know guys are flying tired.

Why more don't call out, I think the FCIR scares them and sick has more "protections". A fatigue call gets seen by the FAA. Enough fatigue calls on the same trip and things might start changing for liability reasons. I have always been paid even when the company claimed it was partially "my fault".

Can you expand on what was deemed “your fault”?

In the few times I've called out it was never seen as my fault

If you have to say "I was fatigued because I..." it's probably your fault.

- I didn't sleep because my kids
-I had a drink
- My commute
- fighting with wife
-fighting with xwife
- girlfriend missed me.... 3 times
-the guy in my crash pad snores at 137Db ect...

If your fatigue was induced by the operation:
LATE flights...
MX
Flew unexpectedly into the WOCL
Compounding fatigue catches up to you, maybe you extended the day before and got min rest the next...
Circadian flip flops shows at 2300 followed by a 0430 28hrs later...
Hotel issues, rooms not ready, hockey tournament kept you up all night
maids opening up your do not disturb sign door, the elevator was next to your room...


Just pull up the Fatigue FCIR and read through it. Read the FRPM.

Don't fly fatigued. It's not safe, and it's illegal. If you have an incident, they'll ask you about your previous rest. If you extended why you extended and how come you didn't know you were fatigued at the end of your flight even though you felt fine to start. Fatigue is difficult to assess especially when fatigued. It's all spelled out in the Fatigue Manual.

Even if it is your fault and you are fatigued the responsible thing to do is to call out ASAP to give the operation as much time to recover as possible

And there in lies the absolute absurdity of part 117 extensions. We’re taught that fatigue sneaks up on you and that when you are fatigued your decision making ability is impaired. Then they ask you to make a decision about your fatigue at a point at which if you were fatigued you’d be unfit to make sound decisions. Makes perfect sense!