Human fatigue and the crash of the airship Italia

Abstract

The airship Italia, commanded by General Umberto Nobile, crashed during its return flight from the North Pole in 1928. The cause of the accident was never satisfactorily explained. We present evidence that the crash may have been fatigue-related. Nobile's memoirs indicate that at the time of the crash he had been awake for at least 72 h. Sleep deprivation impairs multiple aspects of cognitive functioning necessary for exploration missions. Just prior to the crash, Nobile made three command errors, all of which are of types associated with inadequate sleep. First, he ordered a release of lift gas when he should have restarted engines (an example of incorrect data synthesis, with deterioration of divergent thinking); second, he inappropriately ordered the ship above the cloud layer (a deficiency in the assessment of relative risks); and third, he remained above the cloud layer for a prolonged period of time (examples of attention to secondary problems, and calculation problems). We argue that as a result of these three errors, which would not be expected from such an experienced commander, there was no longer enough static lift to maintain level flight when the ship went below the cloud layer. Applying Circadian Performance Simulation Software to the sleep–wake patterns described by Nobile in his memoirs, we found that the predicted performance for someone awake as long as he had been is extremely low. This supports the historical evidence that human fatigue contributed to the crash of the Italia.

• Sleep
• Nobile
• polar exploration
• aviation history
• human error
• mishap.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank Vanessa A. Folkerts, who at the time was a participant in the Scripps College Post-Baccalaureate Premedical Program, Department of Neurosurgery, Cedars–Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles; she provided useful research for the narratives of this paper, as well as text translation from the Italian. The authors also thank Christian Gelzer, Historian at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Neil A. Armstrong Flight Research Center in California, as well as Michael Gorn, Research Associate, Smithsonian Institution, National Air and Space Museum, for their insightful comments in the review of this paper. Additionally, the authors thank Dan L. Chiappe, Professor in Psychology (Human Factors) at California State University—Long Beach, for his thoughtful insights in the review of this paper. Finally, the authors thank Richard S. Williams, Chief Health and Medical Officer, National Aeronautics and Space Agency and two anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful reviews of this paper. EBK is supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health and the National Space Biomedical Research Institute through NASA NCC 9-58.

Notes

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