Packed passenger plane was left flying on autopilot after BOTH pilots fell asleep in the cockpit!

[january 19]

At the 2000 AVSIM conference in Seattle, a university researcher in sleep deprivation, told our audience of a flightcrew that was returning to the US from an extensive tour to Asia.

 

For the final leg across the pacific, the captain, being aware of crew fatigue, asked the senior flight attendant to look in on the flight deck every 20 minutes or so.

 

Hours into the flight, another cabin attendant became alarmed when her supervisor had not returned from the f/deck. She then checked herself, only to find both Captain and FO sound asleep- and with the FA supervisor asleep in the jumpseat- her chin resting on the back of the captain's chair!

january

[sascha 314]

What is anyone supposed to do about that - ban BBQs adjacent to pilot's homes or cancel all night flights?

Rubbish, there is a simple solution.

 

Hire extra crew so that there are at least 24 hrs between long-haul flights for any crew.

 

Or change the flight schedules to achieve the same.

 

I remember back in the day when crew had 3 days in between flights ...

 

Of course tickets were only affordable by the jet set then!

 

Somebody somewhere always has to pay the price for cheap services, with airlines its the pay-to-fly crew which have to work extra long hours to boot!

[japascoe 98]

As far as i am aware legislation is proposed on European level to further increase pilot duty times !!!???!!

 

According to a Dutch aviation news site the European Parliament has today passed a motion to block the proposed new legislation.

[Jude Bradley 659]

According to a Dutch aviation news site the European Parliament has today passed a motion to block the proposed new legislation.

That's good news,as there was some genuine concerns that this would lead to a worsening situation.

 (check BBC news).

[sascha 314]

According to a Dutch aviation news site the European Parliament has today passed a motion to block the proposed new legislation.

Common sense wins out over profit margin - excellent news!

[Raindance 25]

What is anyone supposed to do about that - ban BBQs adjacent to pilot's homes or cancel all night flights?

The pilot could always neck half a bottle of vodka to help him/her sleep.

 

Oh...

[Dave Morgan 68]

What is anyone supposed to do about that - ban BBQs adjacent to pilot's homes or cancel all night flights?

 

That's just silly.

 

I assume pilots receive a salary rather than an hourly or piecework rate so how about an on-site bedroom suite at airports? What would be needed? Beds, privacy & silence, showers, that's about it. Plenty of other employers provide creches, showers, free meals et c. Such a facility for crew could obviate the layover hotel expenses claim as well as reducing pre-flight fatigue. Arrive nine hours earlier for work and get a good day's sleep before starting.

 

D

[Jude Bradley 659]

That's just silly.

 

I assume pilots receive a salary rather than an hourly or piecework rate so how about an on-site bedroom suite at airports? What would be needed? Beds, privacy & silence, showers, that's about it. Plenty of other employers provide creches, showers, free meals et c. Such a facility for crew could obviate the layover hotel expenses claim as well as reducing pre-flight fatigue. Arrive nine hours earlier for work and get a good day's sleep before starting.

 

D

Wasn't this a factor in the Q400 crash in Buffalo some years back?

[z06z33 763]

Yup, as a society we are willing to spend vastly more money to prevent one death from an act of terrorism than to prevent a death from other causes. Far less money is being spent on fall prevention measures / research than on anti-terrorism for example, despite over 14,000 people dying as a result of falls in the US each year.

 

 

Hopefully not taking a political turn here, but the idea behind green taxes (in economic theory, if not in actual implementation) is not that they make the environmental harm go away, but that they offset externalities. Externalities being costs to third parties not directly involved in a business transaction.

E.g. you buy a new car from a factory that uses toxic chemicals and dumps waste in a river. This creates costs for the people downstream of the factory, who have to build a new water purification plant. These people are not involved in the deal between you and the factory, but do incur costs. A green tax on the factory could be used to pay for the new water purification plant, thus offsetting the externalities incurred by the down-river people.

Note this is probably not the best way to solve this particular scenario, but I hope it is a clear example of the economic theory behind using (green) taxes to offset externalities. Whether green taxes are actually properly implemented this way in practise is of course another matter, and as you say a discussion for a different forum.

Green taxes (again in theory at least) can also be used to reduce the price advantage of using less environmentally friendly options, allowing more environmentally friendly alternatives to grow sufficiently for economies of scale to bring the price down.

Exactly the US has spent over $1,000,000,000,000 on two wars yet ,if they spent that much on cancer research it would cured. Alot more lives would have been saved by a cure for cancer than those wars did. Safety isn't the government's priority their priority is telling us how safe they make us so they stay in power

[Airbusman330 300]

That's just silly.

 

I assume pilots receive a salary rather than an hourly or piecework rate so how about an on-site bedroom suite at airports? What would be needed? Beds, privacy & silence, showers, that's about it. Plenty of other employers provide creches, showers, free meals et c. Such a facility for crew could obviate the layover hotel expenses claim as well as reducing pre-flight fatigue. Arrive nine hours earlier for work and get a good day's sleep before starting.

 

D

Nope many pilots here get paid per flight hour after the cabin door closes and if the flight gets canceled some pilots don't even get paid at all.

[sascha 314]

Nope many pilots here get paid per flight hour after the cabin door closes and if the flight gets canceled some pilots don't even get paid at all.

I think it is time to own up to the fact that our economic system does not seem to work for ordinary people as well as it once did.

 

Ecocnomic risk is passed on by shareholders and management until it is mainly carried by the guys doing the work.

 

This seems to happen in more and more lines of business.

 

Where our parents held down a steady job, we now find ourselves as sub-contractors or rent-a-workers.

 

Our parents had regular hours, social security and a pension - these days some of us work two or three jobs to make ends meet.

 

How did this ever happen ...

[KevinAu 441]

I think it is time to own up to the fact that our economic system does not seem to work for ordinary people as well as it once did.

 

Ecocnomic risk is passed on by shareholders and management until it is mainly carried by the guys doing the work.

 

This seems to happen in more and more lines of business.

 

Where our parents held down a steady job, we now find ourselves as sub-contractors or rent-a-workers.

 

Our parents had regular hours, social security and a pension - these days some of us work two or three jobs to make ends meet.

 

How did this ever happen ...

Cheap. The unrelenting desire that we all have to get our goods and services for as close as possible to free. That is how we got here.

[sascha 314]

Cheap. The unrelenting desire that we all have to get our goods and services for as close as possible to free. That is how we got here.

I don't believe that is the only cause - you forgot the desire to maximise profit on the other end of the scale (aka greed).

[KevinAu 441]

Greed is the overriding factor in all of this of course. Greed on the part of companies to make money as you note and greed on the part of customers for only paying the cheapest price as I've noted.

[t_a_h 0]

Call me stupid, but Pilots working for Airlines in Germany are bound to the worklaw about how Long they are allowed to work at max. 10 hrs /da, having 30min break between 6 and 9 hrs of work, having 45min break after 9 hrs work and having to have 11 hrs between the last and the next working Periode. Working 10 hours / day, 6 days straight, has to end after 6 month in such a way that free time has to be given, so the average of 8 hrs / day is  back in place. 

 

The Point is that any Pilots working hours are documented and he got to write a logbook about it. So, if someone tells him to work more, do flights of 12 hrs from entering the prep-office, entering the plane, 'till he leaves the plane at the Destination at the end of his shift, he knows to break a law. So he has the right to tell his Company that he refuses such long shifts. Every Pilot should have a law insurance, so he can take a lawyer and go to court with that case, if his Company fires him of not working more than 10 hrs.

 

It is simple, no Money can pay death. If the Pilot makes Errors which leads to the death of any or all his passengers, and it was because of overworked and sleeping, what will the Family and friends do about it with the Airline? What will the court do with the Airline which ordered and forced his Pilot to work too much and working against the law?

 

What is more importante, the more Money I would get from my Airline and or just not getting fired and having good Money to spent for Luxus and a big house and big car etc. or the responseability I got for the passengers safety?  Endangering the safety? I would not do so, rather getting fired and starting a court case against too many hours of work!