Pilot, co-pilot both fall asleep for 28 minutes on flight to Indonesia
The Federal Government on Thursday announced Sept. 5 as the
date for the full resumption of international flights into the country.
Batik Air plane in Indonesia went off track on it’s flight
path after both the pilot and the co-pilot 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.
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