Pilot fatigue remains a significant aviation safety concern, with a new survey finding that many pilots continue flying while exhausted rather than declaring themselves unfit for duty because of concerns about their employers’ reactions.

The European Cockpit Association (ECA) said fear of career consequences, reluctance to draw attention to fatigue and concerns about inconveniencing employers were among the main barriers preventing pilots from reporting that they were too tired to fly.

The survey, conducted by aviation consultancy Baines Simmons, collected responses from 7,200 pilots across 32 countries. More than half of respondents said they had flown while tired, while over 76% reported experiencing at least one microsleep on the flight deck during the previous four weeks.

Microsleeps are brief, involuntary episodes of sleep that can occur when a person is severely fatigued. Other warning signs include head nodding, difficulty keeping the eyes open and reduced alertness, all of which can compromise a pilot’s ability to respond to changing conditions during a flight.

More than half of the pilots surveyed said that, at least once in the previous three months, they had operated a flight before later realising they should have declared themselves unfit for duty because of fatigue.

Concern about management’s reaction was the most frequently reported barrier, cited by 47% of respondents. Another 44% said they did not want to draw attention to themselves, while 35% were reluctant to inconvenience their employer.

“When pilots fear career consequences, fatigue goes unreported and the risk returns to the cockpit,” said Captain Coen George, an ECA board director.

Fatigue can result from insufficient sleep, long or demanding duty periods and inadequate recovery time between assignments. The report also highlighted cumulative fatigue, which builds up over successive duties and can be harder for pilots to recognise before their performance is affected.

Despite widespread awareness of the risks, confidence in reporting procedures remains low. Although 82% of respondents knew how to submit a fatigue report, only 12% said they trusted the reporting system. Just 11% said fatigue reports had resulted in operational changes intended to improve safety.

Half of those surveyed described fatigue risks at their airlines as poorly managed or not managed at all.

The findings echo concerns raised by the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), which identified aircrew fatigue as a prominent safety issue in a report published in June 2026.

EASA linked fatigue to several operational and employment-related factors, including flight scheduling, short-notice roster changes and the use of commanders’ discretion to extend duty periods beyond planned limits.

The agency called for targeted safety initiatives to improve reporting and awareness, alongside workplace cultures that allow personnel to declare themselves too tired to work without fear of reprimand.

The ECA survey suggests that improving formal reporting procedures alone may not be sufficient. Building trust in those systems and ensuring that fatigue reports lead to meaningful operational changes remain important challenges for airlines seeking to protect flight safety.

One in three young adults in the United States has used artificial intelligence chatbots to seek information about drugs and alcohol, raising concerns among researchers about the potential health risks of inaccurate or misleading advice.

A study published in JMIR Formative Research found that 32% of 995 adults aged 18 to 29 had used tools such as ChatGPT, Google Gemini and Meta AI to obtain information related to substance use.

Among those who used AI for this purpose, nearly half said they did so at least once a month. About 12% reported using chatbots for substance-related information weekly, while 4% said they used them daily or almost daily.

“Using these tools can lead to misinformed or otherwise risky substance-use behaviour among young people, who are the age group most affected by adverse effects of substance use,” said Mireia Triguero Roura, a postdoctoral researcher at Rutgers University and lead author of the study.

The survey was conducted online in April 2026. Researchers found that AI users were primarily seeking information about the risks and consequences of substance use. Nearly 93% of respondents who had asked chatbots substance-related questions cited this as a reason.

Around half sought information about specific substances, including questions about dosage, while 35% used AI to explore substance use disorders and addiction.

The findings suggest that chatbots are supplementing rather than replacing traditional online searches. Among respondents who had used AI for substance-related information, 93% had also used Google search for similar purposes.

Participants generally rated AI tools positively for helpfulness, reliability and trustworthiness. Those who used chatbots for substance-related questions gave them an average trustworthiness score of 3.66 out of five, compared with 3.51 for general use.

Researchers cautioned, however, that positive user perceptions do not establish whether chatbot responses are medically accurate or safe. Incorrect information about substances, their effects or appropriate responses to health risks could influence decisions and encourage harmful behaviour.

The study also identified differences in use according to race and sex. Black respondents had 2.52 times the adjusted odds of reporting substance-related AI use compared with white respondents. Male respondents had approximately twice the adjusted odds of female respondents.

Triguero Roura said these differences could reflect variations in access to healthcare, experiences of stigma, trust in health services and patterns of seeking health information.

The researchers said further studies are needed to assess the accuracy of chatbot answers to drug-related questions and determine how users interpret and act on the information they receive.

They also called for more research into why certain demographic groups are more likely to use AI for substance-related queries.

As generative AI becomes a more common source of information for young adults, the findings highlight the need to understand whether these tools can provide reliable health guidance and how potential risks can be reduced.

Drinking tea three or more times a week is associated with an 11.2 per cent lower risk of vascular disease, including stroke and heart attack, while consuming it at extremely high temperatures may increase the risk, according to a new study published in the Journal of Internal Medicine.

Researchers followed nearly 500,000 people in China for an average of nine years, tracking their tea consumption and the development of related illnesses. They found that regular tea drinkers had a lower overall risk of vascular disease than those who drank tea less frequently.

The strongest association was recorded for ischaemic stroke, with a 36.6 per cent lower risk among regular tea drinkers. The study also found a 19.1 per cent reduction in cerebrovascular disease risk.

However, the findings varied according to the type of tea, its strength and the temperature at which it was consumed.

Tea is made from the leaves of Camellia sinensis, an evergreen shrub native to East Asia. White, green, oolong, black and pu-erh teas all come from the same plant, with their flavours and chemical compositions shaped by processing and oxidation.

Researchers suggested that compounds found in tea, including polyphenols and flavonoids, could help explain the observed associations. These substances have antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties and may support the function of the endothelium, the inner lining of blood vessels, which plays an important role in healthy circulation.

Black tea showed the strongest and most consistent association with lower vascular disease risk, followed by green tea. The researchers pointed to compounds such as theaflavins, which develop during tea processing and have been studied for their potential anti-inflammatory and lipid-regulating effects.

Participants typically drank between two and three cups daily, although the lowest associated risk was observed among those consuming six to eight cups a day. The researchers also found that moderately strong tea served at a temperature that was not scalding was associated with more favourable outcomes.

In contrast, drinking tea at extremely high temperatures was linked to a 16 per cent increase in vascular disease risk. Very hot beverages have also been associated with a higher likelihood of oesophageal cancer in previous research.

The protective association was observed across most demographic groups and appeared stronger among participants with obesity.

However, the researchers cautioned that the findings do not establish that tea itself prevents cardiovascular disease. The study was observational, meaning it identified associations rather than proving cause and effect.

Dell Stanford, senior dietitian at the British Heart Foundation, who was not involved in the research, said differences in participants’ diets and lifestyles could partly explain the results. She warned that the findings did not prove “that a daily cuppa protects your heart”.

The researchers stressed that tea should be considered part of a broader healthy lifestyle rather than a substitute for established prevention measures.

Cardiovascular disease remains the leading cause of illness and death in the European Union, accounting for about one in three deaths and affecting an estimated 62 million people.