US drone pilots are stressed and demoralized – official report
Published on Russia Today RT, April 18, 2014.
The US Government Accountability Office (GAO) has produced a scathing report detailing the Air Force’s mismanagement of its active-duty drone pilots, who are responsible for the most demanding and deadly missions in the entire US military.
US senators asked the GAO to investigate how the Air Force treated its pilots back in 2012, following previous reports of pilot issues, and in view of the massive expansion of America’s secretive drone pilot army. Since President Barack Obama was elected in 2008, the number of drone pilots has tripled, and now stands at over 1,300.
The picture that emerges is of an organization struggling to cope with such growth, and unsure of how to handle its newest division. The Air Force “faces challenges to recruit, develop, and retain pilots and build their morale,” says the 54-page field study.
Many problems stem from an initial inability to select enough psychologically appropriate and technically proficient candidates.
The report shows that the majority of RPA [Remotely Piloted Aircraft] operators are siphoned off from the ordinary pilot corps. This is not considered a fast-track career; all ten anonymous focus groups that the GAO interviewed for its study believe it is harder to get promoted as a drone operator.
Many view the job as a demotion … //
… Alarmingly, the “high pace” of live missions means the majority of pilots – most of whom never even planned to fly a drone – receive “limited training,” which “prevents RPA units from excelling at their missions and becoming experts in their field.”
As well as poor training, pilots suffer from exhaustion brought on by complex timetables demanded by drones that need to be flown on missions that sometimes last over 24 hours. The report says that “constantly rotating shifts caused sleep problems for pilots because they must continuously adjust their sleep schedule to accommodate new shifts.”
The report notes the overall burden experienced by pilots who are deployed-on-station but living in a “war rhythm.” It adds that pilots in this situation “must act with urgency to sometimes kill adversaries and take other time-pressured actions to help ensure combatants they support do not lose their lives” and simultaneously “conceal information from friends and family about their work because their missions are often classified.”
Many “noted that they would prefer to deploy-in-theater for 6 months with a clear end point and be separated from their family and friends rather than be deployed-on-station for 3 or more years.”
“The Air Force has not fully analyzed the effects on morale related to being deployed-on-station, and thus it does not know whether it needs to take actions in response,” states the report.
Unsurprisingly, this cluster of interrelated problems means that “RPA pilots in all of our focus groups reported that these challenging conditions negatively affected their morale and caused them stress.”
The GAO then notes that each RPA unit has been assigned a psychologist, though tartly states that the “most-effective means” to reduce stress would be to eliminate the “below the optimum crew ratios” – though this appears to be something of a vicious circle, with under-staffing making the job even less attractive for new recruits.
The across-the-board problems discussed in the report – describing unwilling, poorly trained, and burnt-out staff – makes the claimed efficiency of the US drone program even more remarkable. While the Bureau of Investigative Journalism says that more than 2,600 people have died in drone strikes during Obama’s terms, the White House said last year that annual civilian casualties were “in the single digits.”
The GAO report has made seven recommendations to the Air Force on recruitment, staffing, pilot feedback, and career prospects. The US Air Force has agreed with four of them and “partially concurred” with three others. However, it has not yet mentioned when reforms will be implemented.
(full text).
Links:
Maverick MiGs? Ukraine jets give low fly-by to defiant cities, on Russia Today RT, April 17, 2014;
African Currency Unit: An urgent question in the midst of the capitalist crisis, on Pambazuka News, by Horace G. Campbell, April 16, 2014: There is enough research to show massive capital drain from Africa and that Africa is a net creditor to Europe and North America. Without an African central bank functioning under democratic control and a credible African currency, the drain of resources will continue to rob Africa the means to achieve development …;
First Outcomes of an International Debt Conference in Brussels: EL Advocates for Remodelling of European Financial Institutions, on transform, April 15, 2014;
Stéphane Hessel : la résistance créatrice, dans Global Relay Network, par EQUIPEHACKINGSOCIAL le 26 Février, 2014;
Le saviez-vous? Beaucoup de pays africains continuent de payer un impôt colonial à la France, dans Global Relay Network, par WILLSUMMER le 21 Février 2014;
just music, on Humanitarian Texts, April 20, 2014;
Daft Punk, on Economy and Society, April 20, 2014.