About half an hour after the plane took off, the captain asked permission from his second-in-command to rest for a while and he said yes.
A Batik Air plane in Indonesia
deviated from its flight path after both the pilot and the co-pilot reportedly
fell asleep for nearly half an hour.
The incident, which happened in
January, saw the pair in the cockpit getting some shuteye, as the aircraft
drifted off it’s planned path – something that could have led to a fatal
disaster for all 153 passengers on board.
It is vital for pilots to keep
an aircraft on the right flight path as it is carefully mapped out by air
traffic controllers to ensure the plane doesn’t cross any other aircraft’s
paths.
The plane was flying from South
East Sulawesi to the capital Jakarta.
It has been reported that one
of the pilots had not rested adequately the night before the flight.
About half an hour after the
plane took off, the captain asked permission from his second-in-command to rest
for a while and he said yes.
The co-pilot took over command
of the aircraft but then fell asleep himself.
A few minutes after the last
recorded transmission by the co-pilot, the area control centre in Jakarta tried
to contact the aircraft.
It received no answer.
Twenty-eight minutes after the
last recorded transmission, the pilot woke up and realised his co-pilot was
asleep and that the aircraft was not on the correct flight path.
He immediately woke his
colleague up, responded to the calls from Jakarta and corrected the flight path,
the report said.
The incident resulted in a series of navigation errors, but the Airbus A320’s 153 passengers and four flight attendants were unharmed during the two-hour-and-35-minute flight.
The transport ministry
‘strongly reprimands’ Batik Air over the incident, air transport
director-general M. Kristi Endah Murni said, calling on airlines to pay more
attention to their air crew’s rest time.
‘We will carry out an
investigation and review of the night flight operation in Indonesia related
with Fatigue Risk Management for Batik Air and all flight operators,’ Kristi
said in a statement.
Batik Air said in a statement
on Saturday that it ‘operates with adequate rest policy’ and that it was
‘committed to implement all safety recommendation’.
The pilots involved in the
January 25 incident had been temporarily suspended, the statement added.
The plane landed safely after
the incident.
Investigators did not identify
the pilots, but said they were both Indonesians and were aged 32 and 28.
Indonesia’s transport ministry
said Saturday it would open a probe into the airline.
Post a Comment