Report: Pilots slept on overnight flight

[Eugene]

Source: Associated Press

Report: Pilots slept on overnight flight

Fri Nov 2, 1:08 AM ET

DENVER - Two commercial pilots allegedly fell asleep
on a flight between Baltimore and Denver, with one pilot
waking up to "frantic" calls from air traffic controllers
warning them they were approaching the airport at twice
the speed allowed.

The March 2004 event, which was discussed during a
Congressional hearing Wednesday, was reported by the
captain on the flight on NASA's Aviation Safety Reporting
System, which allows crew members to anonymously
document incidents.

Details of the "red eye," or late night/early morning flight,
including the airline, flight number, or number of passengers
aboard are not included in the reporting system. It did note
the type of airplane, an Airbus A319, which are flown by
Frontier Airlines and United Airlines.

United spokeswoman Megan McCarthy told the Rocky
Mountain News, which first reported the incident, that
United did not fly a "red eye" between the two cities at
the time and it had no reports of that incident.

-snip-

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071102/ap_on_re_us/sleeping_pilots

[SpiralHawk]

1. "Not me. Not guilty. I was on vacation." - Commander AWOL

"You would think that by now people would have the idea that, when duty calls, I am invaiably AWOL. You will never pin this on me, Smirk, smirk, smirk."

- Commander AWOL

[karlrschneider]

2. No offense but I don't think an alleged anonymously reported incident from 2004

is late breaking news.

[hlthe2b]

3. It is when it has been covered up and just now being reported...

:shrug:

By that standard, there is NO news, because the Bushies* have so effectively kept it from us! Perhaps you are unaware, but this hearing is on the official NASA report on air safety and is documented in the report, the report the Bushies* blocked from release. This is not simply rumor; the identity of airline and pilots involved are intentionally not included in the report, as is the case with many reviews.

[Parche]

11. sleeping pilots

Maybe that is what happened on Paul Wellstones flight?

[Coexist]

4. holy crap!

that is a little scary

[trof]

5. Our unwritten rule:

Only one pilot at a time sleeps.
That's how we used to handle it.
And we had a 3 person crew back then too; captain, first officer, and flight engineer.

[LisaM]

7. Bingo! A three-person crew

They've cut down on airline personnel and pilots are working longer hours, and, if you ask me, this is the issue we should be discussing.

[trof]

10. Yeah, we lost that battle years ago.

I know I'm a geezer, but deregulation was the worst thing that ever happened to air travel.

Yeah, the tickets may be a little cheaper, but who the hell looks forward to flying any more?

The number one concern for all airlines now is profitability.
Not safety, not passenger service or convenience or comfort.

We (ALPA, airline pilots' union) started trying for bulletproof locking cockpit doors back in the 60s.

Air line management screamed bloody murder.
"TOO COSTLY! IT WOULD RUIN US!!"

No changes are ever made until you kill enough people.
Then, magically, they figure a way to do what was too expensive before. When the lawsuits get to be more expensive than the fix, well then...

[Dr.Phool]

6. Standard operating procedure.

This is very common, and occasionally makes the news. A few years ago, Los Angeles Center had to activate a chime in the cockpit of an airliner to wake up the crew, who had flown past LAX, and out over the Pacific.

A close friend of mine, a pilot for a major airline, told me as soon as the wheels come up, his feet go up on the dash, and he does the crossword until, he sets up for final approach.

[trof]

8. A good book helps pass the time too.

Almost anything that goes wrong will give you some kind of aural warning/notification. A beep, a buzz, a ding, a clacker...something.

I learned to read for 5 or so minutes, do a quick instrument crosscheck, back to reading.

It became so ingrained that while reading at home I found myself glancing up at the clock every 5 minutes.
;-)

[superconnected]

9. I wonder if flying tired is as bad as driving tired, which is deadlier

than driving drunk.

I suspect it is.

Maybe amelia airhart just needed sleep...

[KDLarsen]

12. To be fair..

.. the reason there's been this 'coverup' is to make it safe for pilots to come forward and testify to these incidents, without the general public being able to immediately identify the particular airline.. This guy was shifted to 3 night flights of 8 hours and this is what can happen. Crew fatigue is a damn serious issue in any form of transportation, be it trains, airplanes, busses or whatever.

[DemoTex]

13. I used to fly red-eyes, too. The worst: LAX-BWI as red-eye, capped with a BWI-ISP turn.

That last turn from BWI to Islip, New York (ISP on Long Island), was a ball-breaker. It was also the great idea of our new US Air management after the 1989 merger (Piedmont-US Air).

So, I got back to BWI after one of these hellish trips one day. I got in my car to drive home to Alexandria, Va. At a traffic light on New York Avenue in NE Washington, DC, I fell asleep. It took the horn of the car behind me to wake me up.

When I got home, I called my chief pilot (an old Braniff/Piedmont Viet Nam Marine vet). The chief pilot called BULLSHIT on the trip pairings, and notified crew scheduling that for the rest of the month the BWI-ISP-BWI leg would be covered by reserve pilots. Then he called the trip planners and told them to never, ever schedule another leg after a west coast red-eye.

Thus ended the dreaded Islip turn.