Report: Pilots Fell Asleep During Approach To DIA
 

To all the pilots. Please stay awake up there , hundreds of lives are counting on you.
Could be my wife on that plane, someone's child, someone's family, or ME! I realize this is an isolated incident. But one too many.

Every flight has hundreds of lives at stake.



http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/14490568/detail.html#

DENVER -- A commercial pilot and his first officer fell asleep while approaching Denver International Airport in an A319 Airbus jet, going twice the speed as allowed, according to a federal safety Web site.

The incident, which occurred on March 4, 2004, was one of several incidents that was brought out during a congressional hearing on airline safety in Washington this week.

Rep. Bart Gordon , D-Tenn., wanted to know why this information was available on a public Web site where pilots anonymously report the incidents themselves, while NASA wasn't willing to release it as part of a larger survey.


NASA had initially refused to release its National Aviation Operations Monitoring Service survey, saying it could make the public unnecessarily afraid to fly.

In the report filed by the pilot, who was not identified, he said he was flying a red-eye, overnight flight from Denver to Baltimore, and after he landed at Baltimore, he sat on the ground for one hour before he flew back to Denver.

"No rest. Just straight seven hours and 55 minute-flight to Baltimore and back. On this particular day in March 2004, after two previous red-eyes, this being the third red-eye in a row, the last 45 minutes of the flight, I fell asleep and so did the first officer," the pilot wrote.

"Missed all the calls from Air Traffic Control to meet crossing restrictions (where pilots have to be at a certain altitude at a certain location) at the DANDD intersection (the intersection in the sky) in the southeast corridor to Denver. The crossing restriction to be at DANDD was to be at flight level 19,000 and 250 knots. Instead we crossed DANDD at 35,000 feet at Mach .82 (approximately 590 mph)," the pilot continued.

That means that the aircraft was speeding towards DIA's crowded airspace with no one awake at the wheel.

"I woke up, why I don't know, and heard frantic calls from Air Traffic Control approximately 5 nautical miles inside DANDD (about 5 miles past DANND)," the pilot said.

"I answered Air Traffic Control and abided by all instructions to get down. Woke first officer up, started down to flight level 22,000 feet as instructed ... Landed in Denver with no further incidents," the pilot wrote.

The pilot attributed the incident to "pilot fatigue and hopefully, (the) company is in process of changing these trip pairings."

The airline was not identified, but only United and Frontier fly Airbus A319s out of DIA.

A United spokeswoman said the airline had no report of such an incident and the airline did not have a "red eye" flight between Baltimore and Denver.

A Frontier spokesman said his airline did have a "red eye" flight between Baltimore and Denver but told the Rocky Mountain News that but the company could not find a report of the alleged incident on the date mentioned.

The report was filed in NASA's Aviation Safety Reporting System, a public self-reporting site known as ASRA. The site is designed to improve flight safety by allowing anonymous reports to be made.

After the Washington hearing, NASA administrator Michael Griffin told lawmakers that he could release survey information by the end of the year, although certain identifying information would have to be deleted to prevent lawsuits.

Do you still get some kind of immunity if you report an incident to NASAs safety organization?

On the way to DIA??

It must have been during the World Series!!

badda - bummm.




Thank you Ladies and gentlemen - you have been great. Don't forget to treat your waitstaff well - they are all neat kids. 'night all.....http://forums.pelicanparts.com/support/smileys/bye.gifhttp://forums.pelicanparts.com/suppo...ys/drummer.gif

Yes, the pilots get immunity from certificate action when they file these NASA reports (usually, there are exceptions). This allows NASA to build a safety database over time in order to help identify weak links in the operational safety chain. Without anonymous reporting, nobody would ever self-report any incidents or abnormalities that might be FAA violations and NASA would have a tough time trying to identify negative safety trends over time.

Fatigue IS an issue and most airlines know this. Some of the smaller and newer airlines have been known to schedule pilots for obviously unsafe trips, simply because from a technical standpoint they could - irrespective of the obvious fatigue that would result. Three Red-eye's in a row, with early morning arrivals and immediate turn-arounds back across the country is a recipe for an incident just like this.

I don't doubt most pilots fall asleep at times. Most probably awaken each time the ATC says something on the radio. Other than during take-off and landing rolls, commercial pilots rarely need to physically touch the controls for sometimes hours on end. Auto pilots do the flying. My guess is that the pilot turned his volume down. I would be much more afraid of a tour bus drvier falling asleep for an instant at the wheel and hitting oncoming traffic than I would about an airliner flying straight and level on autopilot at 35,000 feet for 15 minutes while the pilot dozed for a bit.

It happens...

I have fallen asleep in an aircraft once because of my own stupidity.

We were aboard an Aegis Guided Missile Cruiser undergoing weapons testing in Hawaii, on the Barking Sands range. We generally spent one night on the ship, one night at the Naval Base at Barking Sands. My girlfriend flew out and during one of the nights off the ship, we went large almost all night. I was a mess the next day, but had to post for the flight. This was old school Navy, you played hard but never missed a flight.

About an hour into the flight I logged out...my co-pilot decided that it was better to let me sleep since he was prepared for the flight and it was a total, range clearing milk run. I have never been more embarrassed...I slept for two hours!

Most accidents are caused by the same irresponsibility I showed. I never did it again.

What a guy! Nice of him to let you have your nap.:)

Happened to me tonight, but it was planned. Was bushed after our 9th day of non-stop flying and getting into the hootch at 2-4 am. Heading across the Straits of Hormutz I was bushed and told the copilot that the ship was his and I was taking 15 minutes nap.

Its well known in the industry that if you get tired, the other guy has the airplane and you grab a quick cat nap. Its better than falling asleep at the stick like the guys above. Glad they made it ok but with the way the airlines push pilots, its going to happen again.

All I know is that if I fell asleep at work, my ass would be fired on the spot. And nobody's life is in danger if I doze off.

Yea, I know you pilots have rough work hours. Join the club.

I can imagine telling my boss "it happens". What a f'ing joke.

Martin, you don't know squat about this well researched and documented issue. People aren't choosing to fall asleep, they just are (other than the planned naps - one pilot at a time, which is OK when the situation warrants it, even if you don't think so). Pilot fatigue is real and it's causes are well documented. Crossing multiple time zones, operating on the "back" side of the clock when one's circadian rhythm is not adjusted to those hours, continuous pervasive single tone "white" noise for hours on end (the sound of the air stream rushing past the cockpit creates this and is typically much louder than in the cabin), darkness, lack of stimuli (believe it or not, the cruise workload for hours on end is basically very, very low - simple monitoring is about it), and working multiple back-side-of-the-clock 12 hours shifts while trying to force yourself to sleep during the day when your body is not adapted to it. All of these and many others cause this phenomenon to occur. And I'll say it again, when it happens to these guys, it's unintended - the brain just decides to "check out" and falls asleep.

There is no comparison to most jobs (your included, I am sure). The factors involved are on a completely different level.

pilots have a great responsibility, after all , the lives of everyone on board are in their hands. Shouldn't 2 pilots be awake at all times? isn't this required?
what if something happens to the awake pilot while the other one asleep?

Pilots are human too, and they get tired, but the flying public wouldn't be too happy knowing that a pilot was sleeping up at the controls....

However, that being said, better a pilot take a nap at 40K ft while the plane was on auto , than sleeping during landing sequence

It is required, yes. However, sometimes the body simply won't comply with regs. This is why so much research has been done over the years concerning this very issue. The industry - companies, pilots, the FAA, scientists - all want to know how and why this is happening and how best to prevent it.

Now, all of that being said, this is a very rare phenomena. For me and most of my brethren, this has never happened. But I can tell you that in broad daylight, with plenty of sleep the night before, I have had to FIGHT myself from falling asleep with all the willpower I could muster.

On a side note, this event desribed did not happen during the "approach". Far from it. This happened during what we call the initial descent, which will typically have a workload higher than simple cruise, but has far, far less workload and potential danger than the real approach phase. Personally, I can't imagine anyone falling asleep during that period. There's just too much going on and that, in and of itself, tends to snap a pilot out of his tired state (almost always, anyway. There was DC-8 cargo jet crash years ago while on a early morning approach into a Cuban airport [I think] that was attributed to the flying pilot literally falling asleep at the controls - I think the crew lived).

Pilot comes on the overhead and goes through his normal patter:

"We've reached our cruising altitude of 32,000 feet. It looks like a perfect day out there. Relax, sit back and we'll have you in New York in 2 hours."

There is a click, but the sound from the overhead continues.

"Ya know Joe, I could really go for a cup of coffee and a blow-job."

A Stewardess runs at top speed toward the cockpit. One of the passengers muses: "Miss, miss. I think you forgot the coffee!"

I'll be here all week. Don't forget to tip the waitresses. You sir, what's your name?...

yeah baby, funny red

this is a problem with any job that has a big dose of monotony, long haul trucker, ER doctor at 0400(hopefully) the impact of sleep deprivation and disturbances in timing of photoperiod(changing time zones) is pretty extensively documented. Imagine the guy in the nuclear missile silo in North Dakota(actually that job was eliminated I believe)

And your ass should probably be fired.

Next time you ride your desk down an approach to a runway in 1/2 mile vis and 200 foot overcast, with freezing fog near the ground and ice covering your wings and belly of the plane from flying into the airport area in heavy storms, pls let us know.

I did the above approach into Vukuno airport in Moscow 4 hours ago. Oh yea, forgot to mention the 22 knot crosswind and ice and snow on the runway once we got the ship on the ground. How good is your Russian while talking to air traffic controllers BTW?

99% of the time we sit in the cockpit its plain jane boring, then with moments like we had yesterday at 2 am while shooting an approach into a military base in Kazakhstan. The autopilot malfunctioned and went from a 3 degree downwards glide towards the runway to pulling the nose up 14 degrees into the air, in the space of 1.5 seconds. This was also solid IFR, in the clouds and ice, 1000 feet above the ground and in the mountains. How is that desk sounding now bucko?

Its been widely researched around the world that the flight crews taking "cat naps" from time to time makes the flight safer. Would you prefer the flight crews being rested while doing an approach to the airport or drowsy from no sleep and been up in the air for 10 hours and dog tired?

Suggest that you do some research from your nice cozy desk on the subject, or possibly take the train next time you wish to travel. Maybe you will learn something...

Falling asleep is not the issue here. It's waking up and noticing the other pilot is sleeping thats an issue.

But anyway, I used to fly Naps, or CDOs (continous duty overnights) for a long time at the airlines, and we routinely set 'turns' as to who was going to cat nap and when. A typical CDO schedule was duty in at 10:30pm, depart at at 11:30pm, (which NEVER happened, because we were ALWAYS late), fly 2-3 hours, get 5:30 hours on the ground, which starts when the plane hits the chocks and includes, walking out front, calling the hotel van because it was never there, checking in to the hotel, going to your room, 'sleeping' for 2-3 hours, riding back to the airport, security, getting the plane ready, boarding and then taking off, sometimes in NASTY weather conditions, etc. Yes this is no different than working a nite shift, but the problem is that it would be this way for a few days, then back to 12 hour day trips then back to CDOs, then early morning shows, etc. Oh, and while I was doing the majority of CDOs, when I landed, I had to go straight to work at my other job so I can pay the bills, go home at 6pm, eat dinner, say hi to my family, then out the door again at 9pm to get to the airport.

You have NO IDEA what flight crews go through unless you've been here.

For me, working a 10 hour day at work and travelling for work for 10 hours is very different. The travelling for work is wayyyyy more exhausting. These guys are in a constant state of "travel." So to compare the "rough hours" as if it's the same isn't fair. Should they both fall asleep at the same time, no. Is it right, no. But their job is much more fatiguing due to the constant state of "travel" they're in and to compare it to being in the office isn't cool.

Pilots are still human like (most) of the rest of us. I can fully appreciate a tough shift on weird hours. I have fallen asleep several times in the delivery room when we are waiting for a reportedly ill baby to be born. Abruptely awaken at 4.30 am after 12-15 hours work to stand ready in the delivery room. Sometimes it takes 15-20 minutes before the obstetrician manage to get the baby out. I am brutally awaken by either the baby instantly crying his airways full of life saving air - in which case I can stumble back to bed - or by my neonatal nurses elbowing me into action with a lifeless baby.

Starting out 15 years ago, I would not imagined one could be able to fall asleep during such circumstances. Now I know better and I can fully appreciate the pilots situation for it.

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

It seems that pilot's schedules are at the root of the problem. Since the pilots have no say in determining their schedules then those who do are at fault, no?

I'd guess that saving money lies at the base of the problem since it would be very expensive to provide fresh pilots for every flight, which would result in higher airfares, which would be protested by the flying public, who get outraged and complain loudly when they hear of this sort of thing happening.

Pilots, is this an accurate take?

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

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

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.

:mad: 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.....:eek:]

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!

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

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

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...

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!

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.

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

http://www.saranair.com/images/others/jt_house1.jpg

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.

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...