Narrative:

It started when I got the call to deahhead in early morning and force-sleep during the day to fly all night. I immediately knew from personal experience and union fatigue articles that the company's plan would never work with my personal diurnal dis-rythmia. I decided to sleep-in later than normal; position myself using another carrier and then fly all night. I knew from personal experience it's better to shift my awake period to later and then stay up later. I was already used to early mornings because I had just completed a check ride with a 5AM show time the day before. While waiting around for the plane to arrive from 'usually late' lga my eyes were 'burning' so I decided to take fatigue-fighting measures. I had read eating high-protein is better for anti-fatigue. So I ordered 3 seared tuna steaks and 3 caffeinated colas form a local restaurant to be delivered to the terminal. Then I bought an extra large coffee; and drank it too. The whole 5 person crew was joking around about pharmaceutical use of caffeine as a stimulant. In retrospect; I realized that joking around about something could be the first sign of something wrong. No-one wants to be the first to say something really is wrong; so they talk about it in joke form. Once the late plane finally arrived; the first officer (first officer) discovered a cracked taxi-light. I was tempted to 'carry' the problem to 'get the show on the road.' I knew we were going to an uncontrolled airport with some closed taxiways so I decided to get the light fixed in case I actually needed it for some tight turns at night....but my desire to just finish the job and rest was out-weighing the legal requirement to fix the mechanical. We waited quite a while for a mechanic to become available. The mechanic said; 'sorry about the delay; we're all swamped.' now that we were really beginning the flight numerous weird; seemingly inconsequential; communication omissions and numerical transposition errors ensued. 1) it took 2 pilots and 3 attempts to correctly set the transponder code. The transponder is now parked in code 2000. We received code 0020. The first officer looked down and thought I had entered the squawk. I said it's not entered; he entered 0200. I said 'zero zero two zero; who's on first?' again; joking around; referencing abbot and costello. 2) then while verifying charts; my green page seemed all wrong. I thought I missed a revision because the date was wrong. I started copying all the changes with the first officer reading them to me from his page. Then; he realized he was on the wrong tab; just one tab earlier. I did have the correct page. 3) of course; nothing could be easy or routine on this night; and fll wasn't using the normal runways. They were using 13 instead of normal 9L-27R. I called the flight attendant's (flight attendants) to brief an extra short taxi. During my briefing; I realized that I had mentally transposed 13 and 31. I told the flight attendant; never mind; I was wrong; normal taxi length. This was a serious 'accident chain link'. Luckily I caught myself before any actions were taken to taxi to the wrong runway. 4) before taxiing; I realized I forgot to enter the departure runway in the prog page. I entered KFLL09L on mental auto-pilot and immediately realized my mistake and put KFLL13. Again I was still stuck on the normal runway. I decided to treat the whole airport as a total hot-spot to be extra careful. 5) now I was numerically gun-shy. I had the copilot verify the altitude with the tower; even though we both copied the clearance and the departure chart showed 3;000. He asked if I was serious. I said yes. It turned out that 3;000 was correct; but I just wanted to be extra sure. This was totally unusual. 6) I forgot to stow my tray table. I hadn't clipped down my charts on the tray table earlier because I intended to put them away for takeoff. My taxi chart book landed in my lap at thrust application. I wanted them behind me so they didn't fall under a rudder pedal. The first officer steered whilei threw charts behind my seat then I took control again. But; this was not a planned transfer of control. Luckily it was all super low-speed around 0-20 KTS. Luckily it wasn't hot coffee or something causing me to swerve off the runway as a scalded leg muscle stiffened. 7) we both missed the 'after take-off' checklist. I realized it at 6;000 ft and called for it. We missed dozens of new callouts. I think we reverted to previous training due to fatigue. The first officer missed calling for after take-off checklist on his leg. I realized it at 8000 ft and exclaimed dang it! At that point the omission errors were getting frustrating.8) while the first officer was sending a delay report ACARS; I watched him type the same line twice. It reminded me of re-reading the same line over and over while reading a book and falling asleep in bed. 9) I ate the last tuna steak and cola even though I wasn't hungry. 10) of course; since nothing was going routinely or easily; there was +RA; LLWAS; and a tailwind upon return to fll. During cruise; the first officer forgot to enter wet and standing water on the preliminary landing performance calculation. I re-assessed the landing conditions correctly. I was worried we would be too slow to react to climb out of a windshear. I considered holding until the weather passed; but approach said weather was stationary. There were no runway specific ws alerts and another airbus reported no windshear and good braking. I verbalized; 'be sure to be extra ready for a windshear.' I was mentally rehearsing toga follow the srs hoping we would be able to react quickly enough to prevent a disaster. Everything went fine for landing. Upon taxiing in I couldn't remember what avionics vent button to press for taxiing in heavy rain...blower or extract? I asked the first officer to look it up but he said; 'that's only for parking.' I knew it wasn't but decided we were all exhausted and just wanting to be done. He used a defense mechanism and said; 'the rain is letting up anyway. I wouldn't consider it heavy.' it reminded me of the portland DC8 engineer saying; 'this dumb fuel gage says zero.' I let it go and continued to the gate.scheduling was out of pilots so they did what they had to do and sent a reserve pilot to fll to fly a red-eye turn.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: A319 Captain describes a reserve callout for a late night flight and the fatigue induced mistakes that occurred.

Narrative: It started when I got the call to deahhead in early morning and force-sleep during the day to fly all night. I immediately knew from personal experience and Union fatigue articles that the Company's plan would never work with my personal diurnal dis-rythmia. I decided to sleep-in later than normal; position myself using another carrier and then fly all night. I knew from personal experience it's better to shift my awake period to later and then stay up later. I was already used to early mornings because I had just completed a check ride with a 5AM show time the day before. While waiting around for the plane to arrive from 'usually late' LGA my eyes were 'burning' so I decided to take fatigue-fighting measures. I had read eating high-protein is better for anti-fatigue. So I ordered 3 seared tuna steaks and 3 caffeinated colas form a local restaurant to be delivered to the terminal. Then I bought an extra large coffee; and drank it too. The whole 5 person crew was joking around about pharmaceutical use of caffeine as a stimulant. In retrospect; I realized that joking around about something could be the first sign of something wrong. No-one wants to be the first to say something REALLY IS wrong; so they talk about it in joke form. Once the late plane finally arrived; the FO (First Officer) discovered a cracked taxi-light. I was tempted to 'carry' the problem to 'get the show on the road.' I knew we were going to an uncontrolled airport with some closed taxiways so I decided to get the light fixed in case I actually needed it for some tight turns at night....but my desire to just finish the job and rest was out-weighing the legal requirement to fix the mechanical. We waited quite a while for a Mechanic to become available. The Mechanic said; 'sorry about the delay; we're all swamped.' Now that we were really beginning the flight numerous weird; seemingly inconsequential; communication omissions and numerical transposition errors ensued. 1) It took 2 pilots and 3 attempts to correctly set the transponder code. The transponder is now parked in code 2000. We received code 0020. The FO looked down and thought I had entered the squawk. I said it's not entered; he entered 0200. I said 'ZERO ZERO two zero; who's on first?' Again; joking around; referencing Abbot and Costello. 2) Then while verifying charts; my green page seemed all wrong. I thought I missed a revision because the date was wrong. I started copying all the changes with the FO reading them to me from his page. Then; he realized he was on the wrong tab; just one tab earlier. I did have the correct page. 3) Of course; nothing could be easy or routine on this night; and FLL wasn't using the normal runways. They were using 13 instead of normal 9L-27R. I called the FA's (Flight Attendants) to brief an extra short taxi. During my briefing; I realized that I had mentally transposed 13 and 31. I told the FA; never mind; I was wrong; normal taxi length. This was a serious 'accident chain link'. Luckily I caught myself before any actions were taken to taxi to the wrong runway. 4) Before taxiing; I realized I forgot to enter the departure runway in the PROG page. I entered KFLL09L on mental auto-pilot and immediately realized my mistake and put KFLL13. Again I was still stuck on the normal runway. I decided to treat the whole airport as a total hot-spot to be extra careful. 5) Now I was numerically gun-shy. I had the copilot verify the altitude with the Tower; even though we both copied the clearance and the departure chart showed 3;000. He asked if I was serious. I said yes. It turned out that 3;000 was correct; but I just wanted to be extra sure. This was totally unusual. 6) I forgot to stow my tray table. I hadn't clipped down my charts on the tray table earlier because I intended to put them away for takeoff. My taxi chart book landed in my lap at thrust application. I wanted them behind me so they didn't fall under a rudder pedal. The FO steered whileI threw charts behind my seat then I took control again. But; this was not a planned transfer of control. Luckily it was all super low-speed around 0-20 KTS. Luckily it wasn't hot coffee or something causing me to swerve off the runway as a scalded leg muscle stiffened. 7) We both missed the 'after take-off' checklist. I realized it at 6;000 FT and called for it. We missed dozens of new callouts. I think we reverted to previous training due to fatigue. The FO missed calling for after take-off checklist on his leg. I realized it at 8000 FT and exclaimed DANG IT! At that point the omission errors were getting frustrating.8) While the FO was sending a delay report ACARS; I watched him type the same line twice. It reminded me of re-reading the same line over and over while reading a book and falling asleep in bed. 9) I ate the last tuna steak and cola even though I wasn't hungry. 10) Of course; since nothing was going routinely or easily; there was +RA; LLWAS; and a tailwind upon return to FLL. During cruise; the FO forgot to enter wet and standing water on the preliminary landing performance calculation. I re-assessed the landing conditions correctly. I was worried we would be too slow to react to climb out of a windshear. I considered holding until the weather passed; but Approach said weather was stationary. There were no runway specific WS alerts and another airbus reported no windshear and good braking. I verbalized; 'be sure to be extra ready for a windshear.' I was mentally rehearsing TOGA follow the SRS hoping we would be able to react quickly enough to prevent a disaster. Everything went fine for landing. Upon taxiing in I couldn't remember what avionics vent button to press for taxiing in heavy rain...blower or extract? I asked the FO to look it up but he said; 'that's only for parking.' I knew it wasn't but decided we were all exhausted and just wanting to be done. He used a defense mechanism and said; 'the rain is letting up anyway. I wouldn't consider it heavy.' It reminded me of the Portland DC8 engineer saying; 'this dumb fuel gage says zero.' I let it go and continued to the gate.Scheduling was out of pilots so they did what they had to do and sent a reserve pilot to FLL to fly a red-eye turn.

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.