A New Twist To Pilots Falling Asleep

Hantu Laut

Below is the latest on pilots falling asleep during flight.

The two pilots on Northwest Airlines flight apparently were too engrossed with their laptops to notice they have overshot their destination. If the plane was on autopilot what happened to the mechanism that suppose to trigger off the buzzer to warn the pilot?

Are their story plausible? Hope the NTSB gets to the bottom of this irresponsible behaviour.

Pilots Who Missed Airport Were Using Their Laptops

By MATTHEW L. WALD

Published: October 26, 2009

The pilots of the Northwest Airlines flight that flew far past the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport last week told investigators that they had been distracted from their duties by a discussion of a new computerized crew-scheduling system that the airline was introducing.

“Both said they lost track of time,” said an interim report released Monday afternoon by the National Transportation Safety Board.

Pilots put in “bids” for routes or work shifts by computer, and both men took out their personal computers in the cockpit, a violation of company policy, the safety board said. The first officer was more familiar with the new system and was explaining it to the captain, the report said.

Both were highly experienced pilots. Capt. Timothy B. Cheney, 53, of Gig Harbor, Wash., was hired in 1985 and had 20,000 hours of experience, about half of it in A-320s, the kind of plane the crew was flying last Wednesday, between San Diego and Minneapolis. First Officer Richard I. Cole, 54, of Salem, Ore., was hired in 1997 and had about 11,000 hours of experience.

“Neither pilot was aware of the airplane’s position until a flight attendant called about five minutes before they were scheduled to land and asked what was their estimated time of arrival,” the interim report said. By that time, they were still at 37,000 feet and more than 100 miles beyond their destination.Read on...