Report: Pilots Fell Asleep During Approach To DIA

[450knotOffice]

Pretty good summation, I'd say (not that I'm calling management the bad guys because that's the reality of the situation, really).

[Joeaksa]

Originally Posted by Flatbutt1

Just curious, what flight qualification does the in flight engineer have? In the unlikely case both pilots are incapacitated, could the engineer take over?

Jeff,

Problem is that due to airline pressure (and updated systems) the flight engineer was eliminated years ago. Only the early B747 and airplanes of that era still have an FE on board.

You are correct that most FE's are pilots and could help should one of the other two crew have an issue. In many cases an FE is a pilot who has reached the "age 60" limit and cannot fly for an airline any longer but then moves to the FE seat. This used to happen "from time to time" but not often.

Joe

[Normy]

Originally Posted by Flatbutt1

Just curious, what flight qualification does the in flight engineer have? In the unlikely case both pilots are incapacitated, could the engineer take over?

Well, I can't speak for ALL FE's, but I'm a current 727 FE, age 41, and I have 8000+ hours and two Boeing type ratings- B727 and B747. I've flown both as Captain around the world. And I sit in back and grit my teeth watching new FO's descend through 10,000 feet...at over 300 knots.

The speed limit at 10,000 feet is 250! Wake up guys!

Anyway, I have indeed fallen asleep at the yoke. I was called from my house in Florida one morning at 8 AM, and told to report to Indianapolis in order to be on-call in uniform at the airport at 6 PM. I arrived at noon, tried to sleep in the hotel, but couldn't. At the airport, we were immediately tasked with flying to Philadelphia, then Pittsburgh, and then back to Indy. We returned to Indy just after midnight, and I was now pretty tired. We were only scheduled to be on call until 12 AM, so I was thinking about the hotel and the bed.

Wrong.

They wanted me and my crew to fly a plane to Dallas, since another had broken down. OK, well, one quick 90 minute flight to DFW, I can do that. We take off at 0130...and immediately we loose half of our hydraulic system! I declare the emergency, we run the checklist, land the aircraft, stop on the runway, pin the gear...get towed to the gate, et cetra. I was full of adrenalin at this point, and felt pretty good. I figured we were going to the hotel for sure.

Wrong.

They discovered a very simple problem [loose hydraulic fitting] and had the plane ready one hour later. They needed the plane in Dallas, and had no other crew to take it there other than ours. I asked my crew if they felt good about taking it, and we all felt wide awake [still the adrenalin, I guess], so we went for it. At this point, it was now 0330, and I had been awake since 0730 = 21 hours. Well, I thought about that, but since it was only 21 hours and we had only declared one emergency...I thought it would be OK to go to DFW.

[hint: declining judgement.....]

We take off for Dallas, and I am just turning the 727 onto the final for runway 18R when I feel myself nod off. The plane turns through the runway approach path and toward the terminals when I realize what is happening and jolt awake, click-off the autopilot, and yank the control yoke to the right. I got the aircraft back on the approach path and look at my FO. He is dozed off too! I tap him, continue, and actually make a pretty decent landing with the sun rising. It is 0730 local time; I had now been awake for 25 hours.

We park the plane, hand the clipboard to a crew waiting to take it to San Antonio, and go to the hotel. At 0815 I am just pulling back the covers of the bed when the phone rings. It is crew scheduling. Guess what? They want me and my crew to ferry the broken plane back to Indianapolis! At this point, common sense finally woke up and I used the "F" word: "Fatigued".

They went on to say to the effect "well, you know, we are going to have to talk to the Chief Pilot/VP of Operations/President of the Company/blah blah blah about this", upon which I told them that I was ending the conversation and would call them when I woke up. I hung up the phone and removed the phone from the jack in the wall.

I called when I woke up, expecting a huge uproar, but they simply told me that they had tickets for my crew back to Indy. When I got to IND, I found out that the Vice President, the Chief Pilot, and the Chief Flight Engineer had to come out of the office to move the plane; I figured I was dead meat. I never heard a word about it! In the airline world, if you use the word "fatigue", then the company CANNOT schedule you or even ask you to fly more. What's more, each time this is called in, they must report it to the FAA. In my case, it was obvious that we weren't just trying to slack off, we were legitimately tired.

I learned something about that: I could have VERY easily had an accident in the condition I was in that morning, and I won't allow myself to get into that situation again. At that particular company [all-cargo, no longer in business], there was no pilot union so they essentially could fire us whenever they wanted, and for whatever reason they could dream up.

I think I'd rather be unemployed and alive than die with my uniform on!

[on-ramp]

it sounds like the industry and the airline companies put pilots in situations as described by Normy. do they only care about making the flight above the crews mental ability to fly the plane? ie. in a fatigued state.

let me ask you this, is it a pilots' responsibility to raise their hands and say "hey, i'm too tired to make this flight, doing so would put the safety of my crew and passengers at risk". obviously most would not do this, in fear of losing their jobs, and upsetting a lot of upper management folks in the process.

in other words, how do the airlines companies handle a situation as described by Normy. do they even care? it sounds reckless if they don't . profits above safety

[cashflyer]

Meh... just turn on the auto-landing feature before napping.

[Tobra]

There are devices to sense and prevent falling asleep for peple at risk, long haul truckers and pilots or whatever. Monitors length of blinks and position of head as I recall. Audible alert and little spritz of peppermint. Aroma therapy apparently does do something.

[Joeaksa]

Originally Posted by Tobra

There are devices to sense and prevent falling asleep for peple at risk, long haul truckers and pilots or whatever. Monitors length of blinks and position of head as I recall. Audible alert and little spritz of peppermint. Aroma therapy apparently does do something.

Never seen one in a cockpit...

[Normy]

Originally Posted by on-ramp

it sounds like the industry and the airline companies put pilots in situations as described by Normy. do they only care about making the flight above the crews mental ability to fly the plane? ie. in a fatigued state.

let me ask you this, is it a pilots' responsibility to raise their hands and say "hey, i'm too tired to make this flight, doing so would put the safety of my crew and passengers at risk". obviously most would not do this, in fear of losing their jobs, and upsetting a lot of upper management folks in the process.

in other words, how do the airlines companies handle a situation as described by Normy. do they even care? it sounds reckless if they don't . profits above safety

Airlines only care about one thing: money. If you crash, then obviously they loose a lot of it, so they don't want you to crash...but they want to "push the edge of the envelope" as far as they can. Nearly ALL airlines are badly understaffed right now.

The safest airlines, in my opinion, have strong unions. With a pilots' union on the property, if they try to fire you for calling fatigued or refusing a flight, they know that the union will get you your job back [after a period of time] along with back pay, so they end up loosing more $ than if they had simply bowed to your wishes and sent you to the hotel. Non-union operations? It depends. If they are in good with the local FAA, then they can probably get away with firing you. If not, then they have to be really carefull, like they were at the airline that I worked for at the time.

FAA? The finest agency that the airlines' money can buy! The big mistake with this organization is that it has a dual mandate: 1. To "Police" aviation to make sure everyone flies safely, and 2. To advance aviation so that more profits can be made by aviation businesses and the economy in general. I'm certain that you've figured out which one I believe gets the emphasis!

I don't mean to scare you- if you take a trip by plane, by a huge margin the most dangerous thing you will do that day is drive a car to the airport. At the same time the Federal aviation regulations with regard to crew duty time/flight time/crew rest need a drastic overhaul. Along with the FAA itself!

[Sonic dB]

We take off for Dallas, and I am just turning the 727 onto the final for runway 18R when I feel myself nod off. The plane turns through the runway approach path and toward the terminals when I realize what is happening and jolt awake, click-off the autopilot, and yank the control yoke to the right. I got the aircraft back on the approach path and look at my FO. He is dozed off too! I tap him, continue, and actually make a pretty decent landing with the sun rising. It is 0730 local time; I had now been awake for 25 hours.

Wow what a story...2 pilots nodding off upon approach. Good sense that you used fatigue the next time.

Was flying AA last year, and about to enter the plane when this little pilot comes running up behind me, goes into the cockpit holding some books and goes "hi, im Jim Ill be flying with you today" to the co-pilot... so yeah they are scrambling to find people sometime.

Scheduled to fly AA to Det. in 2 weeks on an MD-83... hope they remember to grease the jackscrew on the horizontal stabilizer and the pilots are well rested.

[Sonic dB]

OT here is a photo of John Travolta's house and garage

[Normy]

You've got to envy a man who keeps a four-engine heavy jet next to his pool! I've heard that he has or had a 928 at one time.

[Joeaksa]

Originally Posted by Sonic dB

Wow what a story...2 pilots nodding off upon approach. Good sense that you used fatigue the next time.

Was flying AA last year, and about to enter the plane when this little pilot comes running up behind me, goes into the cockpit holding some books and goes "hi, im Jim Ill be flying with you today" to the co-pilot... so yeah they are scrambling to find people sometime.

Scheduled to fly AA to Det. in 2 weeks on an MD-83... hope they remember to grease the jackscrew on the horizontal stabilizer and the pilots are well rested.

Same thing happened to us in a flight 4 months ago. Flying from London to Egypt for fuel, then on to Zambia. We took off at 9 PM and flew all night, landing in Egypt at 0400 AM, then took off for Zambia. Crossing several countries in South Africa we were both bushed and nodded off. How long we slept no one knows, even the flight attendent crashed.

I woke up and noticed the copilot down for the count and tried to contact air traffic control on the radio only to be met with silence. We had overflown our radio range limits. Got the map out and started calling ahead trying to contact someone. Finally made contact and all was well but scared both of us to the point where we refused any futher "all night" flights unless we had at least 3 days rest beforehand.

We are all being pushed at times beyond the safe limits. Twice in the last week I had to tell dispatch that we could not accept a flight, or push the departure back by a couple of hours to allow us to rest. I do not want to leave a smoking hole in the ground and remember that us pilots are the first ones to hit...