News: Did Pilots Fell Asleep in a 30 Minute Flight?
As a frequent traveller, each time I step onto a plane, I feel like I am handing over my life to someone else. I try not to think about the risks involved in flying at 10 miles above safe ground. Sometimes, though news reports make me doubt if I should trust "the system", I hand my life to. This is one of them:
Go! Flight 1002 took off from Honolulu at 9:20 a.m. on Feb. 13. It was scheduled to land in Hilo at 10:05 a.m., but the plane flew beyond Hilo Airport and was out of contact with air traffic controllers for more than 20 minutes, officials said.
Investigators are trying to determine whether the pilots fell asleep and continued to fly out to sea, or if there was some sort of technical communication problem.
The FAA said that even if the pilots did have a communication problem, normal procedure would be to stick to the flight plan and land the aircraft in Hilo at the appointed time. (Full)
Check out the story in my eBook: Italians, the Art of Flying and the Laws of Probability.
Update April 25: The two pilots were fired. (Full)
Cartoon courtesy of The Aviator Website
Peter. Flemish, European, aid worker, expeditioner, sailor, traveller, husband, father, friend, nutcase. Not necessarily in that order.
1 comments:
If they were snoring, FAA will not have to listen to the whole tape. Amazing that this should/could happen on a 30 minute flight. But then. When I was head of our office in Zalingei we used to switch of our generator at 23h00 for the night. One day I was chatting with my watchman and told him "Good Night" at 22h55 and went to my room. Five minutes later the generator did not stop. And was still on 10 minutes later. I went to see what has happened. The guard was sound asleep. In 5 Minutes!!
Post a Comment