Human fatigue and the crash of the airship Italia

Figures & data

Table 1 Neurocognitive effects of sleep loss, adapted from Durmer & Dinges (2005) and other sources.

• General slowing of information processing; the likelihood of error increases when there is time pressure to produce a response
• Slowed (increased) response time
• Increased errors of omission (i.e., behavioural lapses evident as failure to respond in a timely manner to a stimulus)
• Increased errors of commission (i.e., responses when no stimulus is present, or responses to the wrong stimulus)
• Decline of both short-term recall and working memory
• Reduced learning (acquisition) of cognitive tasks
• Impaired innovation, with inhibition of “cognitive creativity”
• Response perseveration on ineffective solutions (i.e., keep trying to do something even if it is not producing the desired result)
• Reduced ability to deal with the unexpected
• Reduced ability to deal with competing distractions or task information from multiple sources
• Growing neglect of activities judged to be non-essential (possibly resulting in a loss of situational awareness)
• Deterioration of performance requiring divergent thinking (i.e., problems with the evaluation of multiple potential solutions to a problem)
• Reduced sensitivity to risk differences among options (i.e., error in assessing relative risk of actions)
• Increased risk tolerance
• Ineffective communication
• Involuntary episodes of micro-sleep (i.e., very short sleep episodes)

Fig. 1  Raster plot of Nobile's estimated sleep–wake–work cycles and light levels. Days are on the vertical axis and hours of the day on the horizontal axis. Black areas indicate periods of sleep, white areas indicate time spent awake on the ground and grey areas represent the flight. Estimated light levels (ELL) are shown for wake and flight segments. The timing of events A, B, 1, P and 2 are indicated: A is launch of the science and exploration flight; B is landing of the science and exploration flight; 1 is take-off of the polar flight; P is passage over the North Pole; and 2 is crash onto ice. The ELL were (i) for sleep, 5 lux; (ii) for daytime on the ground, 1500 lux; (iii) for flight in the clouds, 2000 lux; and (iv) for flight in clear skies, 20 000 lux. The asterisk indicates the 30 min when the ELL was 20 000, before returning to 2000 lux.

Fig. 2  CPSS plot of predicted performance relative to baseline for an individual with the sleep–wake cycles of General Umberto Nobile from 12 to 25 May. (a) Estimated light levels (lux). (b) Relative performance level, compared to a well-rested baseline. Sleep times are black boxes; times of core body temperature minimum, which reflect the expected times of worst performance, are red vertical lines; key events are green vertical lines; and the performance curve is blue.

Durmer J.S., Dinges D.F. Neurocognitive consequences of sleep deprivation. Seminars in Neurology. 2005; 25: 117–129. [PubMed Abstract].

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