Narrative:

The night before our scheduled duty; the crew was assigned a predawn standby next morning at teb with no trips. While we were out to dinner we missed a few calls by dispatch and were notified that our next day had changed and now we had trips with minimum rest. We had been put to rest at early evening and when I pointed out the current time it was changed. We were to show up [before dawn] with a reduced preflight and departure [time] to mvy. Then [we had] a reduced turn time to depart to bos. Weather was low ceilings with poor visibility and wet runway conditions. Once we landed at bos; we informed dispatch that we had two mechanical items (standby flight display malfunction and failed FMS). A short time later; we were notified to post-flight that aircraft and then take a taxi to a nearby airport; pre-flight a new aircraft and position it; then [fly] a live leg with passengers on a short flight (which was our original plan). Because of the time constrains; we had to try and get sleep and get to the airport by a predawn time. We were not able to plan for food for the next day. Hotel is located in a busy urban area that is prone to lots of noise. I was woken up at 2:30 am with a police siren and the first officer had issues with a bad bed and poor air conditioning in his room that affected his sleep. Overall; [we] were both starting the first flying day with sleep deprivation. Add to the fact our last meal was early evening on the previous night and we did not even have a chance to try arrange for food. With the change in aircraft; we had to post-flight one aircraft then endure a one hour taxi ride in metropolitan morning traffic to preflight a new airplane. All the while; we would have rushed to complete four flight legs without the standard turn time of one hour. Weather conditions were poor at all of our airports. The crew was sleep deprived. Lots of pressure to perform already task saturated crew. Sops were not being adhered to concerning giving adequate time to preflight and post-flight an aircraft; that puts time pressure on the crew. Crew was showing signs of sleep deprivation and lack of nutrition. Time pressure was added; having to take a taxi in a congested metropolitan traffic. We conducted a risk analysis chart and it showed 54 out of 75 and was in the red. Crew was concerned about the safety aspect of finishing a duty day that is 10 hours in bad weather; sleep deprivation; and having to rush to meet expected results by the company and the passengers. Mechanical issues had deviated from SOP. By the time the duty day would have ended in mid afternoon; the crew would not have had any nutrition for the past 21 hours. It was decided that as a crew we could not guarantee a safe outcome. We decided to call in fatigued to remove ourselves from flying duty for the rest of the day. Dispatch supervisor and the flight duty officer were notified. We were removed from flying duty and placed in a hotel for the rest of the day. Next day we flew a transcontinental flight and swapped into a new airplane. This type of situation is hard to predict and hard to avoid in advance. However; once the ball starts rolling down hill; someone should work really hard to make sure it does not cascade down to the pilots. Pilots will try very hard to achieve a goal once assigned. Best way to avoid a situation is to remove the situation before it gets to the pilots.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: A fractional crew removed themselves from a series of flights because during the previous night; the morning's report time was changed. They had poor sleep and no time for food between taxi trips and flights.

Narrative: The night before our scheduled duty; the crew was assigned a predawn standby next morning at TEB with no trips. While we were out to dinner we missed a few calls by Dispatch and were notified that our next day had changed and now we had trips with minimum rest. We had been put to rest at early evening and when I pointed out the current time it was changed. We were to show up [before dawn] with a reduced preflight and departure [time] to MVY. Then [we had] a reduced turn time to depart to BOS. Weather was low ceilings with poor visibility and wet runway conditions. Once we landed at BOS; we informed Dispatch that we had two mechanical items (standby flight display malfunction and failed FMS). A short time later; we were notified to post-flight that aircraft and then take a taxi to a nearby airport; pre-flight a new aircraft and position it; then [fly] a live leg with passengers on a short flight (which was our original plan). Because of the time constrains; we had to try and get sleep and get to the airport by a predawn time. We were not able to plan for food for the next day. Hotel is located in a busy urban area that is prone to lots of noise. I was woken up at 2:30 AM with a police siren and the First Officer had issues with a bad bed and poor air conditioning in his room that affected his sleep. Overall; [we] were both starting the first flying day with sleep deprivation. Add to the fact our last meal was early evening on the previous night and we did not even have a chance to try arrange for food. With the change in aircraft; we had to post-flight one aircraft then endure a one hour taxi ride in metropolitan morning traffic to preflight a new airplane. All the while; we would have rushed to complete four flight legs without the standard turn time of one hour. Weather conditions were poor at all of our airports. The crew was sleep deprived. Lots of pressure to perform already task saturated crew. SOPs were not being adhered to concerning giving adequate time to preflight and post-flight an aircraft; that puts time pressure on the crew. Crew was showing signs of sleep deprivation and lack of nutrition. Time pressure was added; having to take a taxi in a congested metropolitan traffic. We conducted a risk analysis chart and it showed 54 out of 75 and was in the red. Crew was concerned about the safety aspect of finishing a duty day that is 10 hours in bad weather; sleep deprivation; and having to rush to meet expected results by the company and the passengers. Mechanical issues had deviated from SOP. By the time the duty day would have ended in mid afternoon; the crew would not have had any nutrition for the past 21 hours. It was decided that as a crew we could not guarantee a safe outcome. We decided to call in fatigued to remove ourselves from flying duty for the rest of the day. Dispatch Supervisor and the Flight Duty Officer were notified. We were removed from flying duty and placed in a hotel for the rest of the day. Next day we flew a transcontinental flight and swapped into a new airplane. This type of situation is hard to predict and hard to avoid in advance. However; once the ball starts rolling down hill; someone should work really hard to make sure it does not cascade down to the pilots. Pilots will try very hard to achieve a goal once assigned. Best way to avoid a situation is to remove the situation before it gets to the pilots.

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.