Fatigue risk management programme
171.—(1)  An AOC holder must establish and implement a fatigue risk management programme for every flight of a relevant aircraft, for the purpose of managing fatigue‑related safety risks and with the aim of ensuring that every person assigned to duty on the flight as a flight crew member or a cabin crew member is performing at an adequate level of alertness.
(2)  The fatigue risk management programme established in accordance with paragraph (1) must be one of the following:
(a)the system specified in Part 1 of the Fifth Schedule with the prescribed flight time, flight duty period, duty period limitations and rest period requirements for all of the AOC holder’s operations;
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(b)a Fatigue Risk Management System (FRMS) in accordance with Part 2 of the Fifth Schedule for all of the AOC holder’s operations;
(c)the FRMS mentioned in sub-paragraph (b) for part of the AOC holder’s operations and the system described in sub‑paragraph (a) for the remainder of the AOC holder’s operations.
(3)  The fatigue risk management programme established in accordance with paragraph (1) must include, for each person that is assigned duty as a crew member for a flight of a relevant aircraft —
(a)an opportunity for the person to consume a meal when the flight duty period exceeds 5 hours; and
(b)the nomination of a home base for the person where the home base is assigned with a degree of permanence.
(4)  An AOC holder must not implement its fatigue risk management programme, or any change to an approved fatigue risk management programme, unless —
(a)the programme or the proposed change has been approved by the Director‑General of Civil Aviation; and
(b)the details of the approved programme or the approved change have been included in its Operations Manual.
(5)  An AOC holder must establish, and include in the fatigue risk management programme, details of the following:
(a)the assignment to an appropriate member of the operations personnel the responsibility for issuing instructions and making decisions on matters of flight, duty and rest periods and for processing discretion reports;
(b)the discretion which may be exercised by a pilot‑in‑command, and the extent to which the pilot‑in‑command is authorised, in an unforeseen operational circumstance, to deviate from the AOC holder’s limitations on flight duty periods or minimum rest periods;
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(c)the related reporting by the pilot-in-command each time the pilot-in-command exercises the discretion mentioned in sub-paragraph (b);
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(d)the minimum period before a flight duty period, which must be not less than 8 hours, during which a crew member must abstain from consuming any psychoactive substance;
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(e)the precautions to be taken by a person who is assigned duty as a crew member when the person is taking medication.
(6)  On application by an AOC holder, the Director‑General of Civil Aviation may, in exceptional circumstances, approve variations to a prescribed requirement of the AOC holder’s fatigue risk management programme if the AOC holder —
(a)has conducted a risk assessment on the proposed variation using a process acceptable to the Director‑General of Civil Aviation;
(b)has ensured that proposed variation provides a level of safety at least equivalent to that achieved through the prescribed requirements through the risk assessment process; and
(c)has provided full details of the proposed variation and the corresponding risk assessment to the Director‑General of Civil Aviation.