Commercial pilots may have fallen asleep at yoke
Air India pilots flying passengers from Dubai to Mumbai allegedly fell asleep en route, reports the Times of India. According to the newspaper, the plane overshot Mumbai on autopilot and went halfway to Goa before air traffic control finally woke the pilots. Air India denies it. From AFP:
Air India on Thursday said a plane had overshot its Mumbai destination on June 4 but furiously denied it was because the pilots were sleeping, putting the glitch down to a brief communications breakdown.Sleeping pilots? (AFP, via Fortean Times)
"The report is absolutely incorrect, devoid of facts, misleading and irresponsible. It is a figment of imagination," Air India spokesman Jitender Bhargava told AFP by telephone from Mumbai.
"We have gone through the flight reports of the last 30 days. A plane did cross Mumbai for 15 kilometres because it had lost contact for a few moments. At those speeds 15 kilometres is covered in a very short time."
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When is Air India going to learn that pilots need liberal amounts of amphetamines?
Pretty much from say 30,000 ft in a 737 you're descending at 300ft per mile (3 degree descent) so you start descending at about 100 miles out (wind dependent).
That they overshot the runway by 15KM means they were 2 minutes over their stated destination.
They would have been under radar/air traffic control and if they had not been cleared for landing then they were not allowed to do so. Out of radio contact means maintain present altitude and course (obstacles permitting) and attempt to regain radio contact.
If they plane was at 30,000 ft over Mumbia then they were asleep.
If the plane was at 5,000 ft over Mumbia then they just lost contact.
The press really don't have an idea when it comes to reporting aviation incidents.
More facts required.
Here's to rested pilots for my Air India flight to Paris next month.
I fly Jet Airways in India! Air India makes even cost-cutting corporate travel agents nervous.
@Otter not helping my faith in the post-Nyquil Bernoulli principle there...
Go! Airlines pilots fell asleep and passed the Big Island in Hawaii a few months ago. It's not just Air India...
Reminds me of the old Tommy Cooper gag - "I'd like to die the same way as my father, peacefully in his sleep and not like his passengers - screaming with terror"...
For a decade I worked for a company which does industrial fatigue, alertness consulting and work schedule design. We were the folks you'd call when your airline pilots or nuclear control room workers fell asleep at 3am. And I'll tell you, based on my experience the only thing odd about this case is that they didn't wake up in time and overshot the airport.
Pilots try not to, but they can't help but fall asleep all the time. They're human, too, and are often on rapidly changing rotas that vary their sleep/wake times. Look around a cabin at 3am; pilots are no less susceptible to sleepiness than anyone else. Luckily, technology does a wonderful job of providing backup and preventing actual human error.
Both airplane pilots and control room workers fall asleep all the time. There's nothing implausible about this story, so why does Air India deny it?