Pilots Fall Asleep at The Helm
 

I don't know where it fits in the D&G scene but it sounds interesting, especially for anyone thinking of taking an FO slot on the Subcontinent. Hasn't happened to me yet but have come close a few times way back in the day. Love the comms failure call " oh got you now melb centre. Had some problems with the HF"


The Western Australian Today


An Air India flight headed for Mumbai overshot its destination and was halfway to Goa before its dozing pilots were woken up by air traffic control, a report said.
The high altitude nap took place approximately two weeks ago, the Times of India reported on Thursday.

Some 100 passengers were on board the state-run flight that originated from Dubai and flew to the western Indian city of Jaipur before heading south to Mumbai when both pilots fell asleep, a source told the paper.

"After operating an overnight flight, fatigue levels peak - and so the pilots dozed off after taking off from Jaipur," the source, who was not identified in the report, said.

The plane flew to Mumbai on autopilot, but when air traffic there tried to help the aircraft land, the plane ignored their instructions and carried on at full speed towards Goa.

"It was only after the aircraft reached Mumbai airspace that air traffic control realised it was not responding to any instructions and was carrying on its own course," the source said.

"The aircraft should have begun its descent about 100 miles (160km) from Mumbai, but here it was still at cruising altitude. We checked for hijack."

Finally air traffic control buzzed the cockpit and woke up the pilots, who turned the plane around, the report said.

When contacted by the newspaper, Air India said it was gathering information on the incident.

The manager of Mumbai's airport insisted the aircraft had suffered a "communications failure" and that no napping had taken place.

But sources told the daily that authorities were trying to hush up the matter.

Indian papers reported this week that a flight operated by private airline Jetlite to the central Indian city of Patna was grounded after the pilot was found to be drunk.

AFP

Damn i wish we had that feature!

What do you mean PTM, I've got the "shock the gonads" button on my console, no wait that's for me.

Oh yeah, got that one...good for long doggos

A mate at one of our LLC's told me of two similar episodes they had. Both back of the clock, one the crew only woke when the door over-ride buzzer woke them, and the other had traversed the continent at the wrong level without realising it until radar identified close to destination.

I hate back of the clock. :ooh:

our CX 777's and 744's all have "Pilot Response" cautions and warnings to wake you up after about 20 mins of nothing being touched.
Do the 73 NG's and A320's have this too?

Fairly sure that my memory is correct in recalling a similar incident in a night freight MU2 bound for Cairns who woke up somewhere, let's say well north of Cairns. Approaching Lockhart River if memory serves me well, which led to a certain concern over fuel reserves.

I am open to correction, I believe it was in the 70's.

I'm tired..........

Wow - looks like we will have to teach that aircraft a lesson and listen to the instructions of the ATC. Either that or let ATC fly the aircraft and then we can all go to the pub.

Remote control aircraft - big boys style !!!

Maybe it's time the industry had a long hard look at it's cavalier approach to fatigue, fatigue management and duty times, especially back of the clock flights and flights across multiple time zones.

In Asia there seessm to be this inability to accept the fact that people normally need to sleep at night. This, combined with the commercial pressures of the present industry situation and the booming of LCC's, appears, to me, to be setting pilots up for more of these incidents. Let's hope sanity will prevail beofre peolpe die, but I doubt that will happen, seems the industry's quite happy to kill some people, blame the pilots, then move on. All for the sake of a few $$$$:yuk:

Or take a tip from the Railways and have a deadman switch, without the resultant slamming the brakes on (for all you smart ar$e$ out there).

Every 15 min a ping sound goes off, and you have to reach up or over....somewhere a little of a stretch and tap a pushbutton. If nothing is received it pings and pings at a faster rate....... and finally the electric cattle prod inserted in the front seats thinks you are a cow:eek:.

Problem solved!

J:E

.. it has ever been thus for back of the clock operations .. my favourite story involves one of our now retired and beloved elder statesmen (never got around to finishing my DC3 endorsement with him) .. still with us, fortunately .. so no names, no pack drill ...

Long, long ago before glass cockpits were a glint in an OEM's eye ... two stalwart and intrepid folk were droning over the pond from Tassie to Essendon in a Gooney Bird ... cut a long story short ... one woke up somewhere north of EN .. turned the bird around .. and eventually raised ATC on the blower when back on the correct route into EN .. normal sorts of tall tales and true covered their sins ... as normal protocol had it in such circumstances back then

Taxying in .. ATC requests that they call the tower on the phone after shut down ...

ATC guy says something along the lines of "Geez, (name omitted), I must have nodded off ... missed your earlier position completely .... if it's OK with you .. it's OK with me ? .. (aviation example of quid pro quo ..they were mates .. as was the usual case in those olden days)".

Another, like tale, involving freighters saw that legend, Jason X, (who happened to be the father in law of the former tale's subject at one stage - is aviation not an incestuous Industry ?) .. sound asleep in a Gooney when one motor let go ... the F/O, one Barry X (from whom I got the tale) fixed the problem and settled down to OEI flight .. the Commander stirred from sleep .. observed that all was well .. and, directing the F/O to carry on .. retired once more to his slumbers ...

The only tale I can relate at my expense involved my nodding off during the landing flare one very early morning .. and it was my sector .. a flurry of hands from the other seat saved the day ...

These days I really think I prefer a tipple and into bed .. rather than getting up to go to work ...

Go to Dick Smith Electronics/Tandy and buy an electronic egg timer. Set it for 1 min before the next waypoint, problem fixed...:ok:

Binos. It was a King Air 200. :E

OOPS Sorry I thought this could have been a thread about AIPA.:}:}:}

buy an electronic egg timer

.. at the time of those tales ... the word electronic hadn't been coined .. but we all had one mechanical device or another to achieve the same end .. problem was remembering to set it prior to nodding off .. actually the main problem was trying to make sure that at least one of the 2/3 folk involved stayed awake .. can recall coming back from NZ (with a nav = 4 crew) after a mongrel trip for sleep ... I woke up going through FL200 on climb ... and had to force myself to stay awake as none of the others showed any interest in waking up ... OK, that makes two tales at my expense .. the others are all improper so I'll keep them to myself ...

I'm sure this happens a lot more than we'd like to believe. Fairly common on night shift to call aircraft for 5 to 10 minutes before getting a response. I realize that they could be on the numbers or on company freq some of the time, but...

We had a guy a couple of years back that ploughed straight through Pucka military live firing zone. He was half way through before he responded to calls and then quickly apologized for dozing off. I bet he wished he'd given himself a minute to recover his senses before admitting that over the air!

I get the F/O to wake me up so I can take my rest:=. Got to be fresh for those big nights in LKF:E

Ha ha. I remember in the GOD's when one of my colleague's flying night freight in a Queen Air used sit one of those big old alarm clocks on the dashboard. You know, one of those clocks with huge bells on top. You could even hear it ticking over the roaring Queenies engines.

Christ I'm glad those days are over.;)

A former colleague, no longer in the land of the living, told a tale of a northbound trip from Brisvegas. The skipper was known to take a combat nap that generally lasted from transition to close to descent, and also known to be a world leader in low greenhouse emissions by only juts carrying enough fuel.

Our intrepid F/O is handed the controls immediately after the transition checklist and flew the rest of the climb and cruise working the wiz-wheel calculating if there was in fact enough fuel to make TVL.

Retribution was called for.

Bloggs managed to have the jet coupled to the ILS and with a landing imminent and the skipper still deep into his combat nap, Bloggs pressed the GPWS test.

"WHOOP WHOOP, PULL UP, PULL UP" Red lights flashing.

Holy Sh!t, or similar, exclaimed the skipper, who woke with quite a start to a windscreen full of lights and quite a low nose attitude! :E