BENGALURU – The alarming levels of dependence on social media and itsaddiction seems to be affecting the pilots of Indian Air Force also. AirChief Marshal BS Dhanoa on Friday said that the ability of the pilots isbeing hampered as they are facing sleep deprivation due to the long hoursthey spend on social media.
Speaking at the 57th annual conference by Indian Society of AerospaceMedicine, the IAF chief urged the Institute of Aerospace Medicine (IAM) todevelop a mechanism which will help in identifying pilots who have notslept well enough before taking off.
The IAF chief said that dependence on social media is taking away theinterpersonal and communication skills. “Earlier if a pilot had one drinktoo many, the bar man would know. If he failed to notice, the others wouldknow and he’d be laid off flying for the day. Today we even have breathanalysers. We need a system today that can tell us if a pilot had beensleep deprived,” Dhanoa was quoted by The Times of India.
He said that by being hooked on to social media, pilots sleep lateresulting in lesser hours of sleep than required. “Everybody seems to geton to social media late, it then keeps them awake. Flying sorties when theambient temperature goes beyond 40 degree Celsius is discouraged so most ofthem take off early in the day. This means that most flight briefings areas early as 6am and pilots haven’t had enough sleep,” he said.
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He even recalled a mishap that took place in 2013 at Uttarlai airbase inRajasthan which he said was due to sleep deprivation. “We even had a fatalaccident in 2013 because of this problem. It was found that continuoussleep deprivation was the reason for the accident,” he said.
