Captain & F/O Fall Asleep in Cockpit

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,307019,00.html

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A commercial pilot had recently switched schedules to flying three "red eyes" in a row between Denver and Baltimore with only one hour in between flights. On March 4, 2004, during the third late-night flight, the pilot and his first officer were approaching Denver in an A319 Airbus jet — about the size of a Boeing 737 — and they were fast asleep.

"LAST 45 MINS OF FLT I FELL ASLEEP AND SO DID THE FO," or first officer, a one-paragraph report in a NASA-run public reporting system says.

"MISSED ALL CALLS FROM ATC (air-traffic controller)," the report continues, saying that the plane was supposed to be traveling at less than 290 mph, but they were moving at a clip of about 590 mph.

"I WOKE UP, WHY I DON'T KNOW, AND HEARD FRANTIC CALLS FROM ATC. ... I ANSWERED ATC AND ABIDED BY ALL INSTRUCTIONS TO GET DOWN. WOKE FO UP," the report says, adding that he then followed all the controller's instructions, "AND LANDED WITH NO FURTHER INCIDENTS."

"HOPEFULLY COMPANY IS IN PROCESS OF CHANGING THESE TRIP PAIRINGS," the pilot said in the report, which is posted on NASA's Aviation Safety Reporting System.

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I first read it and I was thinking about how stupid the pilots are. Then you read the details and it puts the blame on the airline.

Although, I thought that the programs used by airlines to schedule crews for flights didn't even allow a pilot to fly what is obviously a violation of duty time. Am I mistaken?

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Originally Posted by Phil D.

Although, I thought that the programs used by airlines to schedule crews for flights didn't even allow a pilot to fly what is obviously a violation of duty time. Am I mistaken?

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I'm not sure about the airlines, but in the charter arena, our scheduling software will ALERT you at least 3 times that a crewmember is either
1) Over duty time for the day
2) Over flight time for the day
3) Over 10hrs flight in a 24hour period
4) Less than minimum rest between duty periods.

You cannot move on in the process without correcting the issue or the program will ALERT you again everytime you access any part of the trip. You have to fix the crew issue in order to proceed effectively, otherwise you are just wasting your own time.

Having said that, you can still sent the trip out with an illegal crew pairing...if you just didn't care about being employed anymore. I know where I am, after forcing a violation like that, you'd be out on the street before the aircraft landed.

Why do airliners not have equipment to make sure the crew is awake the way modern trains do? I know it's a bit different having autopilot and all, but there is surely a way to do it, like an alarm sounding if the pilot does not hit a button at a random time interval, or sensors that monitor eye movement.

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Originally Posted by GothamSpotter

Why do airliners not have equipment to make sure the crew is awake the way modern trains do? I know it's a bit different having autopilot and all, but there is surely a way to do it, like an alarm sounding if the pilot does not hit a button at a random time interval, or sensors that monitor eye movement.

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Sensors monitoring EOMs would have to be placed in close proximity to the eyes. I don;t think it'd be practical in the situation. I do like the idea though of hitting a button on the stick as feedback.

In trains, are you referring to the dead mans brake?

There's the dead man's brake on all trains but on the Acela (at least in MS Train Simulator) if you don't make a control input every couple of minutes an alarm goes off and if you don't respond to that, the emergency brake engages.

Ah yes. The LIRR DM/DEs also have that feedback.

The "dead man's pedal" was how old trains handled something like this; modern trains have what's called the "alerter". Basically, there's some set period of time, and if there's no input from the engineer (changing any of the controls or pressing the alerter button) it sounds an alarm, and if it's not acknowledged it'll apply the brakes. Except for that last part, it could probably work in an airplane, too.

whoa, that incident is on the ASRS? can't wait to get my hands on that one!

Is this one of those Incidents tha NASA compiled and kept secret from the public, Government?

Senga

Yes it is. After being grilled in a Congressional hearing yesterday, where this particular incident was cited, NASA promised to release the report by the end of the year, though only after a thorough cleaning (removing details) to prevent "lawsuits." :roll:

Everybody connected with aviation should be a regular reader of Callback, the monthly publication that NASA puts out regarding all sorts of safety issues. I know I've been reading it since I was 5 or 6 - I used to look forward to seeing that piece of green paper folded in thirds arrive in the mailbox. It's available online at http://asrs.arc.nasa.gov/publications/callback.html , but, unfortunately, they stopped mailing the paper version a few years ago.

Thanks for posting that, the one in the Sept issue about the Auto Marshalling system malfunctioning actually happened at my terminal - A-West. Though it was before I started working there. That was like two years ago I think.