A fatigued B747-400 crew was told they had enough legal duty time remaining to complete the 19+30 ho...

Narrative:

Diverted to a foreign airport for destination weather below minimums. Called company crew desk to ask about duty day contractually and far's. Noted pages of contract we felt applied. 747 crew desk person said we had even 2 hours extra of crew duty day and must continue to our destination. We were all tired and asked again about if we were legal for far's and contractually. Crew desk said yes. Took off without enough duty day to complete flight. Total duty day was 19:40 and limit was 19:30. Violation of far's. It used to be the crew desk gave us valid information and we could trust it. Dispatcher also said we had enough day to complete flight. We had no idea we had violated far's till next day when it showed up in the scheduling computer.

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: A fatigued B747-400 crew was told they had enough legal duty time remaining to complete the 19+30 hour duty; but discovered the following day the Company had lied and in fact they violated an FAR.

Narrative: Diverted to a foreign airport for destination weather below minimums. Called Company Crew Desk to ask about duty day contractually and FAR's. Noted pages of contract we felt applied. 747 Crew Desk person said we had even 2 hours extra of crew duty day and must continue to our destination. We were all tired and asked again about if we were legal for FAR's and contractually. Crew Desk said yes. Took off without enough duty day to complete flight. Total duty day was 19:40 and limit was 19:30. Violation of FAR'S. It used to be the Crew Desk gave us valid information and we could trust it. Dispatcher also said we had enough day to complete flight. We had no idea we had violated FAR'S till next day when it showed up in the scheduling computer.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of July 2013 and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.

Attributes
ACN	1014739
Time
Date	201206
Local Time Of Day	0001-0600
Place
Locale Reference	ZZZZ.Airport
State Reference	FO
Environment
Flight Conditions	VMC
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	B747-400
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 121
Flight Phase	Taxi
Flight Plan	IFR
Person 1
Function	Pilot Not Flying Relief Pilot
Experience	Flight Crew Last 90 Days 160 Flight Crew Total 9000 Flight Crew Type 5000
Events
Anomaly	Deviation - Procedural FAR

A fatigued B747-400 crew was told they had enough legal duty time remaining to complete the 19+30 hour duty; but discovered the following day the company had lied and in fact they violated an far.