Narrative:

This report is due to a fatigue issue. I was assigned a trip; which included a flight to den. The flight was uneventful; and we blocked in at XE59 local den time. Due to the time difference; I was up at approximately XA30 local den time to catch the hotel shuttle to the airport. I had gone to bed early the night before to be properly rested for my duties. After I had departed the airport on my drive home; the crew desk called to assign me a new trip. I got that message when I arrived home at around XH00. I called and was informed that they had assigned me a flight that same night that departed at XT20 local den time. I asked how that was legal; and was told that it gave me 14 hours and 21 minutes since the crew desk had first attempted contact (while I was driving home from the airport) so it was legal. I told them that since I had been up since XA30; there was no way I could be properly rested to fly until nearly midnight den time. As I had only been up for a few hours; it was ridiculous to think that I could go right back to sleep and somehow reset my body clock. It was obvious to me that I would be in no condition to fly an aircraft at that point. After some discussion; the crew desk asked me if I was going to call myself fatigued. Since it was clear that I could not report for duty properly rested; I said; 'yes; show me fatigued.' while the above example may have been legal; in reality it put be in an untenable situation. If reserve coverage is so short that the above scheduling practice is the only option; we need to increase reserve coverage to an acceptable level.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: A B737 air carrier pilot reported refusing an assignment because of fatigue.

Narrative: This report is due to a fatigue issue. I was assigned a trip; which included a flight to DEN. The flight was uneventful; and we blocked in at XE59 local DEN time. Due to the time difference; I was up at approximately XA30 local DEN time to catch the hotel shuttle to the airport. I had gone to bed early the night before to be properly rested for my duties. After I had departed the airport on my drive home; the crew desk called to assign me a new trip. I got that message when I arrived home at around XH00. I called and was informed that they had assigned me a flight that same night that departed at XT20 local DEN time. I asked how that was legal; and was told that it gave me 14 hours and 21 minutes since the crew desk had first attempted contact (while I was driving home from the airport) so it was legal. I told them that since I had been up since XA30; there was no way I could be properly rested to fly until nearly midnight DEN time. As I had only been up for a few hours; it was ridiculous to think that I could go right back to sleep and somehow reset my body clock. It was obvious to me that I would be in no condition to fly an aircraft at that point. After some discussion; the crew desk asked me if I was going to call myself fatigued. Since it was clear that I could not report for duty properly rested; I said; 'yes; show me fatigued.' While the above example may have been legal; in reality it put be in an untenable situation. If reserve coverage is so short that the above scheduling practice is the only option; we need to increase reserve coverage to an acceptable level.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of April 2012 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.