The NTSB sent a letter to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, which regulates bus and truck safety, citing accidents in which sleep apnea was a factor.

The NTSB noted the Federal Railroad Administration already is working on drafting new regulations to address the problem.

Earlier this year, the board sent similar recommendations to the Federal Aviation Administration and to local transit agencies across the country.

Sleep apnea causes pauses in breathing, which can interrupt sleep and increase fatigue.

Sleep apnea has been found to be a factor in incidents involving every transportation mode, NTSB Chairman Deborah Hersman said.

Among the incidents cited by the NTSB:

* In January 2008, a motorcoach with passengers returning from a weekend ski trip went too fast around a curve on a rural Utah highway. The bus went careening down a mountainside, killing nine people and injuring 43 others. The driver suffered from sleep apnea and had trouble using a device to regulate his breathing while sleeping in the days before the accident.

* The same month, two go! airlines pilots conked out for at least 18 minutes during a midmorning flight from Honolulu to Hilo, Hawaii, as their plane continued to cruise past its destination and out to sea. Air traffic controllers were finally able to raise the pilots, who turned the plane around with its 40 passengers and landed it safely. The captain was later diagnosed with sleep apnea.

* A trolley train that crashed into another train in May 2008 in Newton, Mass. Investigators said the driver likely fell asleep because she suffered from sleep apnea, but it could not be proved because she died.

* In November 2001, a train engineer who drove through a stop warning in Clarkston, Mich., striking another train and killing two crew members. He was found to be a high risk for sleep apnea, but had not been diagnosed or treated.

* In June 1995, a cruise ship maneuvering through Alaska's Inside Passage was grounded on a submerged, but charted and marked rock by a pilot later diagnosed with sleep apnea. The ship was carrying about 2,200 people.

A 2002 study that found 7 percent of adults have at least a moderate form of the disorder, but people often don't know they have it.

The Federal Motor Carrier Administration is already considering a rule to tighten its standards for medical certification of commercial drivers, DOT spokeswoman Sasha Johnson said.

The FAA is also in the process of drafting new rules to broadly address pilot fatigue and will consider the board's recommendations, spokeswoman Laura Brown said.

Mark Rosenker, a former NTSB acting chairman, said the issue has long been a concern of the board, but the go! airlines incident jarred board members.

"Obviously when two pilots fall asleep in the cockpit and they miss their stop that triggers a lot of interest at NTSB," Rosenker said.

(UTU editors' note: In April 2004, the UTU’s medical consultant, Dr. Norman K. Brown, alerted UTU members to the risk of sleep apnea, urging members with certain symptoms to seek testing and treatment by their physicians. He noted that treatment is generally covered by healthcare insurance.)

To read Dr. Brown’s column on sleep apnea, click on the following link:

www.utu.org/worksite/detail_news.cfm?ArticleID=13699

(The preceding article was published by the Associated Press.)