Loss of Com Incident
This incident has deeply embarrassed all at VN and management now seem to be inward looking and not just blaming the crew.
It seems that the flight went nocoms somewhere in the Ukraine and flew through Poland and into the Czech republic before being intercepted and regaining communications. At no time was its identity in doubt. The transponder code was correct and was turned on.
It seems that a frequency change was not given to the aircraft by the controller somewhere in the Ukraine and it flew out of range of that transmitter. The usual collection of events then occurred to cause the holes in the Swiss cheese to line up.
The way it has been told: 1. One pilot may have taken a nap, speakers were turned off and the other pilot put on his headset. 2. At sometime one of the crew had selected a different frequency on com 3 so data was not selected, inbound phone calls were then prevented. 3 At sometime the pilot took his headset off and the aircraft became no com.
It has been said that the captain was not on great terms with the cabin crew and they came nowhere near him. The captain at sometime engaged the F/O in some sort of quiz and a degree of awareness seems to have been lost. It was just prior to dawn when body rhythm is at its lowest.
They deny being asleep. The crew seems to have been the relief crew. The flight is heavy crewed with four pilots.
The aircraft is fitted with the “Pilot Response” warning.
It seems that the operating F/O came back on duty early and observed the fighter and immediately communicated on 121.5.