Commercial Fixed Wing
Flight Crew Last 90 Days 235; Flight Crew Total 11500; Flight Crew Type 4000
Fatigue; Communication Breakdown
Aircraft Equipment Problem Critical; Inflight Event / Encounter Weather / Turbulence
Flight Crew Returned To Departure Airport; General Declared Emergency; General Work Refused
Aircraft; Weather
While level at cruise; the Captain discovered a crack beginning to develop on the inner pane of his front window. He began to run the QRH while I continued to fly the aircraft. We also called to have the on board Mechanic come up and take a look. We ran the QRH for an inner pane crack; which required us to don our O2 masks; begin a descent to 14;000 FT and to return to our departure airport. We were flying in and out of rain showers while at the some time deviating around cells and had occasional light to moderate turbulence. We declared an emergency; and had to coordinate with ATC for a descent to a lower altitude; while at the same time talking to company traffic that was below us in order to facilitate a descent. We then began a slow descent to 14;000. We had to communicate on HF which made transmissions hard to understand and caused a delay in getting what we needed.We were cleared to return and; as we watched the crack increase slightly; flew an RNAV approach while in and out of rain showers. We landed without further incident. Total flight was 2:50 minutes.After flying for 2:50 minutes and declaring an emergency; Crew Scheduling wanted us to swap aircraft and complete the flight. Our scheduled flight time for our round trip is blocked at 7:50. If we were to add the time already flown it would have but us at 10:40 of flying time for the day. That is longer then most TRANS-PACIFIC flights from the West Coast to Japan. Those planes are crewed with 3 pilots and have bunk facilities. This would have been 10:40 minutes of flying time and probably 15 plus hours of duty time. The Captain and I felt it would not be safe to continue on to the next flight and were told by Scheduling that our only option was to call in fatigued. We decided the safest course of action after having declared an emergency and doing an air return in weather was to call in fatigued.
[Narrative #2 contained no additional information.]
An international flight crew operating a round trip flight within the South Pacific discovered a growing crack in the Captain's windshield. They declared an emergency and returned to their departure aiport. They then refused to fly their turnaroud with another aircraft due to fatigue.