SAS pilot fell asleep while co-pilot at the toilet

[SadPole]

Hotel Charlie

And as long as Joe Public gets cheap airfare and the statistics ain't to bad he's a happy camper

Unfortunately, this is how it works. Governments and corporations have "risk management" specialists that calculate what is cheaper, take some risks and pay for screw-ups this much with such and such probability, or pay for not taking those risks X amount of money.

When I lived in the US, there was this constant propaganda of how excessive damages awarded by courts are a drag on companies. But, the other side of the coin is that this is that such damages push those risk-management calculations toward more sanity. A pilot/engineer/production manager being pushed to do stupid things by management can then testify in court to that effect and get a part of the damages in the process, and this protects him far more than any governmental regulations.

Without it, there would be much more of the low-cost risks everywhere. So, maybe there is some value to that so called "sue-happy" society.

[sf25]

And as long as Joe Public gets cheap airfare and the statistics ain't to bad he's a happy camper

Unfortunately, this is how it works.

NOT TRUE! Joe Public doesnīt have the faintest idea about fatigue being a serious and common problem in aviation. Joe Public normally doesnīt peruse forums like pprune but gets his information from the media where heīs happy to read that the recent incident/ accident was "just" a pilotīs error.

Joe Public believes that there are rules and regulations enough to make his life as slf safe.

... itīs about the professional pilots to act and inform and let Joe know whatīs behind the pilotīs error and make him aware of the coherences.

[Bigmouth]

Joe Public doesnīt have the faintest idea because Joe Public doesnīt care as long as he can save a few quid on his ticket and spend them on a beer at the airport bar instead.
And Joe P. wouldnīt necessarily get any wiser from perusing these pages either.
In the case of this thread starter a captain nodded off for a couple of minutes while the FO was absent. He reports this to his airline and thus by extension also to the local CAA, just like he is supposed to. May we all learn something from it.
What we learn is not to write reports, as the result will inevitably be that some hack will get a hold of it, copy it pretty much verbatim and publish it with a sensational shock/horror headline.
Funny thing is... Sometime last year both pilots of a LoCo based in the same neighborhood fall asleep over Germany and donīt wake up until they are over Sweden (Incident: Norwegian B738 over Germany, Denmark and Sweden on Jul 13th 2010, loss of communication for 30 minutes). The airline laughs it off and says: "Just a case of a misdialed frequency, ha ha, silly ATC couldnīt figure out an alternate way of contacting them, ha ha, happens all the time."
And the tabloids once again do a copy/paste.

And when yours truly here on pprune questions the "ha-ha, silly mistake" attitude and opines that 30mins sounds more like a nap than a goof, the thread gets removed.

Go figure.

[Akali Dal]

This was NOT supposed to happen! I thought first world airpilots are SO disciplined top of the world aces that they would and could do no wrong.

If it had been a third world pilot, the eye rollings and dismissive snorts wopuld have been unending

[Hotel Charlie]

Akali Dal:

had been a third world pilot, the eye rollings and dismissive snorts wopuld have been unending

Well dude if a so called "third world pilot" were to report himself he would most likely get fired or maybe even sent to jail! So guess what? You'll be none the wiser