The day of the accident, the pilot would've completed 5 "journals" (days?) of work for the month of August (40 hours of service). Originally, he was not the assigned pilot for the flight on the company's monthly plan. There was some change to that plan which originally asked for him to fly the following Thursday instead.
He started the day in his rented apartment which he shared with another pilot friend in Barcelona. He arrived to the BCN airport around 8:00am, an hour before his first flight of the day, JK455 to Madrid. He flew EC-HFP as he had done many times before. Left BCN at 8:55 with 73 passengers and a crew of 4 and Francisco Javier Mulet as copilot.
No reported problems on that flight that arrived at Madrid Barajas (MAD) airport at 10:13am, 7 minutes early. All the crew, except for one flight attendant who had a different flight scheduled that day, had a required rest stop in Madrid before their JK5022 flight to Las Palmas (LPA) scheduled for 13.05. Pilot and copilot signed in the rest area and remained there for over the 2 required hours (checking emails, reading newspapers, checking flight plans for the next flight).
The pilot is described by everyone as being quite strict on every little detail (a "perfectionist", I guess one could call him).
The crew seems to be 4 flight attendants based in Madrid and 3 other based in Barcelona. The 4 from Madrid were on service while the 3 from Barcelona were travelling to Las Palmas to work on another flight leaving from there the next day.
All the crew have been cleared by the judiciary investigation to be in full compliance of work schedules, permits and certifications. None had worked in the past months above their hour limits, etc.
Last edited by justme69; 13th Sep 2008 at 01:24.