Japanese pilot dozes off twice during 1h flight
BBC News : Japanese pilot dozes off
Quote:
A Japanese pilot dozed off twice at the controls during an hour-long internal flight last month, All Nippon Airways (ANA) has admitted.
The airline issued an apology on Friday after the 50-year-old captain was revealed to have napped while flying 184 passengers and crew on auto-pilot.
The pilot has been suspended and is currently undergoing medical tests.
Quote:
Last February, a bullet train driver with 800 passengers on board travelled about 26km at almost 300 kilometres (186 miles) an hour while sleeping soundly.
He was discovered to be suffering from a syndrome which causes sufferers to fall asleep suddenly during the daytime.
This is to put in relation with the blatant incompetence of Japanese doctors and taxi drivers, and shall I also mentioned corrupted politicians without a single ideal, school teachers that cannot teach something that is not in the book and even Japanese English teachers that cannot speak English...
Take this with a grain of salt, but there is nevertheless an underlying problem in these professions. Erring is human, but I doubt that Japanese should be more human than Westerners.
sleepy pilots and train conductors
Quote:
Originally Posted by Maciamo
Another article said that he slept for 20 minutes.
Anyway, now that I think about it, there must have been at least one co-pilot, so that doesn't really matter...
Frightning, however !!! 2 "responsable" pilots assleep at the same time ?
That seems to be quiet impossible *, since the automatic pilot in a plane will ask a "referal question" every 10 minutes and that function CANNOT BE TURNED OFF. In some airlines the referal question comes even more often, every 5, 7, 8, 9 minutes. (referal question consists in a specific task which varies every time and are numerous). (*unless plane is "so old" that the system has not been implemented, but I believe that it would not be allowed to fly as per IATA rulings)
The referal system is also known in trains and I'm extremely surprised to hear that it happened. In the TGV in France (Bullet trains) the driver (who can be sick or even die) has to do a specific task every "X" minute(s). If he does'nt respond to it immediately (delay is +/- 10 seconds) the train will immediately send out an electronic message to the control room, where responsable living persons will take the situation under close attention and simultaneously, the train will automatically slow down and stop if nothing else happens.
If I'm wrong, then I'll keep on walking... until some car driver, asleep himself too, will run over me...
The captain might be out, but there's always the pilot next to him.
Though one might on why he fell asleep in the first place.
But if he fall asleep due to exhaustion because his work, I hope that he would just get off with a light disclipinary action. Flying is quite exhausting not due physical actions, but due to the constant attention.
Though if he regulary fall asleep in his work, maybe he should decided a change in carrer?
Of course, there are differences between taking a nap and falling asleep. Pilots like to take a nap (they need to, especially in long flights), but they're not supposed to fall asleep.
As for a dead man switch feature in a 747.
Older aircrafts (think propellers) might have this kind of feature, but not in a 747.
Though with all of the automation these days, it would be interesting incase all the pilots are all incapacitated and there's no one flying the craft, the computer will bring down the craft on the nearest runway, unless of course the computer decided that the craft should land on a building. Who ever hear a computer landing a Boeing 767 on a building?
As for long non-stop flights.
I think that they have at least two crew shifts for long non-stop flights. So there might be around three to four pilots (2 Captains and 2 Pilots) onboard in a long flight.
In long multiple stops flight on the other hand, the shift change was done while the aircraft is on the ground.