NTSB labels Coast Guard efforts to address
mariner fatigue as ‘unacceptable’
In an effort to reduce accidents, the National Transportation Safety Board is renewing its efforts to get the Coast Guard to adopt regulations that would reduce fatigue among mariners, including rules that would prescribe longer periods of uninterrupted sleep. The NTSB has been urging the Coast Guard since 1989 to revise regulations governing working hours. At a November 2007 meeting the NTSB reviewed its Most Wanted List of safety measures. At that time, the board classified the Coast Guard's response to an earlier NTSB recommendation on fatigue as "unacceptable." In June 1999, the NTSB added a recommendation on fatigue to its Most Wanted List, urging the Coast Guard to establish working-hour limits based on scientific knowledge of human sleep needs. The Coast Guard declined to adopt the NTSB's recommendation. In…