Indonesia’s transport ministry will launch an investigation after two Batik Air pilots fell asleep during a recent flight, according to state news agency Antara, citing the ministry’s civil aviation director-general M Kristi Endah Murni.
According to a preliminary report released Saturday by the National Transportation Safety Committee (KNKT), both the pilot and co-pilot fell asleep simultaneously for 28 minutes during a flight from Kendari in Southeast Sulawesi province to the capital Jakarta on January 25, causing navigational errors as “the aircraft was not in the correct flight path.”
Definitely overworked pilots.
The reason given in the article the co-pilot accidentally fell asleep is because he has “one-month-old twins.”
Sounds like a man who needs paternity leave.
But they both needed to sleep. The flight is just 2h 40min (I’ve done this before) so it’s likely they both needed to rest a bit. I know a number of pilots in US and European airlines, and they’ve always maintained that these commuter runs are a grind.
A factual, “You snooze, you lose”. I suspect they lost (or will lose) their jobs.
Good to note, “None on board - including 153 passengers and four flight attendants - were injured during the flight, and there was no damage to the aircraft.”
I would bet cash money these are symptoms of systemic problems at the airline.
Despite the phrasing in the top of the article (copied to the post), it sounds like the pilot had permission (from someone?) to rest and was intentionally sleeping, and it was only the co-pilot who accidentally fell asleep.
Well, the big question here is whether the captain and FO had a rough night at the same time, or if the airline is fucking with mandatory rest regulations. I know where my bet would be.
If it gets found that they didn’t get the required time to sleep, it won’t be them losing jobs, but one or a few levels up in corporate.
