Pilot falls asleep, misses destination

I flew with a Whale pilot who hit the bailout horn to wake a crewmember who dozed off on a long boring cross-country.
Definitely gets your attention.

Nauga,
makin' diamonds
 
luvflyin said:
Saw a King Air miss an entire Country once. Coming from somewhere to the East, destination KSNA. Up around 18,000 or so. Goes NORDO, keeps flying straight ahead after SLI and runs out of gas around FICKY. This wakes him up and he did a good job ditching and gets plucked out of the water right away. He was very lucky, there was a Navy helicopter that just happened to be milling around out in the Warning Area and had enough gas to hang around, watch him hit the water and rescue him. Oh yeah. It was night
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Yikes! FICKY is a LONG ways out there........
 
The CFI who taught me how to fly was a retired US Navy pilot who flew A-4's in Vietnam. He told me a story about a flight that he did from Jacksonville, Florida to Phoenix in the morning, and then had to wait around all day before he was to fly back to Jacksonville. He left Phoenix in the evening, and fell asleep somewhere over New Mexico. He estimates that he was asleep for about 45 minutes, and remembers being aroused out of his slumber by hearing someone shouting out his name repeatedly (it was a controller at Fort Worth Center). Upon being unable to reach him, Center traced the origin of the flight, and was able to find the Commanding Officer who knew who was piloting the plane. After he woke up, Center asked him if he was hypoxic, and then told him to find himself. The remainder of the flight back to Jacksonville was done with a an ATC controller talking to him the entire way --- sharing war stories, ball scores, etc.
 
nauga said:
I flew with a Whale pilot who hit the bailout horn to wake a crewmember who dozed off on a long boring cross-country.
Definitely gets your attention.

Nauga,
makin' diamonds
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A3?? Do they bail or eject? I’m having this practical jokes gone wrong visual
 
Kelvin said:
Don't let me wake up and catch you asleep...
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That is what I tell my brother when he falls asleep when we are going somewhere...which he does frequently when I'm flying. I've threatened to roll it inverted and push one of these days.

Photo is in Swift. He does it in the RV-4 too. Heck, he's fallen asleep in the Cub too.

RickSleepingSwift.jpg
 
nauga said:
I flew with a Whale pilot who hit the bailout horn to wake a crewmember who dozed off on a long boring cross-country.
Definitely gets your attention.

Nauga,
makin' diamonds
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That's not funny.
I was napping in the back of a C130 flying NOE for a jump at oh-dark-thrity. About 30min in some wanker up front hit the bell. Like, not a quick oops that's not the switch I wanted bell. It was the long "hey the wings on fire or some ****" and you guys should jump out the back while you can bell. We just started getting up when we heard it was a mistake.
Effin flyboys.

Not a fun way to wake up from a nap. Well as much as you could nap on those AF seats with 100lb of **** hanging on you.
 
N3368K said:
That is what I tell my brother when he falls asleep when we are going somewhere...which he does frequently when I'm flying. I've threatened to roll it inverted and push one of these days.

Photo is in Swift. He does it in the RV-4 too. Heck, he's fallen asleep in the Cub too.
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My son is exactly the same. Complains that the temperature is a perfect warm (not hot) for snoozing. I've literally had to wake him up during moderate TB as I was worried he'd have a sore neck at arrival:confused:
 
luvflyin said:
A3?? Do they bail or eject? I’m having this practical jokes gone wrong visual
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Bailout only, and that takes a concerted effort. My intro to egress was "If you *need* to get out you can't, if you *can* get out you don't need to. Any questions?"
(for the safety-minded, there were more details later)
The worst that could come out of a quick blip of the horn was a bad day in the laundry.

Nauga,
like Noah
 
not to mention folks who can only dream of even getting tested due to cost
 
I once worked in a factory, in the tool cage. At work at 6:30 a.m. Dark dingy place with constant noise all around. Now and then when not so much to do in the tool cage they'd put me on a stamping machine that you fed thick plates into, got your hands out of the way when in place, and hit a foot pedal for a huge mass of machine to stamp it into shape. Had a counter on it.

Once working on it, I "woke up" in the men's room, at a hand cleaning basin splashing water on my face. Went back to the machine, and saw on the counter that I had stamped about 100 plates while asleep.

That scared the crap out of me.
 
LongRoadBob said:
I once worked in a factory, in the tool cage. At work at 6:30 a.m. Dark dingy place with constant noise all around. Now and then when not so much to do in the tool cage they'd put me on a stamping machine that you fed thick plates into, got your hands out of the way when in place, and hit a foot pedal for a huge mass of machine to stamp it into shape. Had a counter on it.

Once working on it, I "woke up" in the men's room, at a hand cleaning basin splashing water on my face. Went back to the machine, and saw on the counter that I had stamped about 100 plates while asleep.

That scared the crap out of me.
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I found myself about three miles south of Lincoln, NE on a country road with nothing around but corn fields one day. I remember driving from Omaha to Lincoln, stopping at an intersection on the other side of town, then ... nothing. Drove back the way I must have come, and it scared the bejeesus out of me. I mean, I must have stopped at those stop signs and intersections with traffic lights and all as I drove through the city, but I sure didn't and still don't remember it. Eventually I figured out that loading up on sugar (Snickers bar & Mountain Dew) before a road trip was a bad idea for me.
 
In the late 90's I had an 0 dark hundred wakeup and flew 4 legs that day then jumpseat 2 legs going home to commuting to MHT then an hour drive home. During the day I had the last 2 flights delayed for various reasons and when jumpseating home got some more delays so it was 0200 when I was walking from the terminal to my truck in the parking lot. On route 101 (4 lane divided highway) saw some flashing blue lights behind me so I pulled over. The trooper walked up and burst out laughing when he saw me. He was a former student who I worked with getting his private and instrument a few years before. This was his last shift before he went to the air division. He told me I was doing a perfect job of straddling the center line and since it was a white line was wondering if I was trying to 'rotate'.
 
Leaving Mather, I beleive, after a long drunken night in Sacremento, we were bound for Andrews, and an active duty one-star jumped on; we were a reserve tactical airlift C-130 crew and airplane - never carried pax, and 75% of our sorties were unprssurized and 300' AGL, and so "guests" weren't common.

I was on the flight deck, dying of dehydration, nausea, gravel-eye. . .and noticed the AC was dead aspleep. The right seat was occupied by the subject of an incomplete autopsy, the FE's eyes were closed and he was blowing drool bubbles. The Nav was face down, still twitching a bit, but headset was askew.

The general was sitting on the bunk, with papers and briefcase - no headset, thank God. I kneeled next to the AC, like I was looking for traffic, etc., and hit him with an elbow.

I thought we pulled it off - turned out we didn't. . .
 
DaleB said:
I found myself about three miles south of Lincoln, NE on a country road with nothing around but corn fields one day. I remember driving from Omaha to Lincoln, stopping at an intersection on the other side of town, then ... nothing. Drove back the way I must have come, and it scared the bejeesus out of me. I mean, I must have stopped at those stop signs and intersections with traffic lights and all as I drove through the city, but I sure didn't and still don't remember it. Eventually I figured out that loading up on sugar (Snickers bar & Mountain Dew) before a road trip was a bad idea for me.
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In cars, long trips, I always have changed things up a lot here and there. Open a window (specially if it is cold outside), adjust the seat a little every now and then, radio, etc. Helps, but I never thought about a long flight as a pilot, being a lot like driving in Utah or something.

I may be remembering this wrong, but in the seventies driving cross country, there is LOONG stretch of perfectly straight highway with no scenery except expansive flats. I noticed almost every single electrical post has tire tracks where someone sometime just drove off the road and did alternate "S-turns" around the posts. I assume out of boredom, and picture it starting with "hold my beer"...

I also noticed when I had a different job where I had to spend time writing down instrument values, check amperage and voltage, etc. in a generator room that had a huge trafo in it...that trafo had a pretty loud 60 cycle hum going, and within minutes of being in that little room no matter how quick and refreshed I was going in, I was zombie. Something (for me at least) about 60 cycle that just is like a hypnosis machine.

Any tricks for long flights, straight and level flying? Change seat position, open vent, turn down heat, change power now and then, S-turns every 30 minutes?? practice stalls? Eat a sandwhich, coffee, alarm clock on telephone set for every 10 min?

What do y'all do for those long straight ahead flights?
 
LongRoadBob said:
In cars, long trips, I always have changed things up a lot here and there. Open a window (specially if it is cold outside), adjust the seat a little every now and then, radio, etc. Helps, but I never thought about a long flight as a pilot, being a lot like driving in Utah or something.
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I've had no problems at all since abandoning sugary stuff while driving. I'll drink tea, diet soda, coffee, water, whatever. Snacks are usually carrot sticks, nuts, or something else crunchy but not sugary. I'm not diabetic, but my blood sugar does funny things sometimes if I have a candy bar or cookies. Never have had a problem while (non-airline) flying.

There were a couple of incidents on a motorcycle when I was very young and doing dumb things, but nobody'd believe me if I told them.
 
Lindberg said:
You've asserted that pilots unions are necessary to make commercial aviation safe. So I'm asking whether the pilots imagine maybe sure these pilots lose their jobs or make sure they keep them. I see airline pilots in this thread making excuses for endangering passengers and saying they'd cover up behavior that does so.
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???
The unions fight for lower duty periods, more rest, and fewer redeyes.

I think that makes things safer. You?
 
vman said:
management is responsible for disciplinary action, unions have a duty to represent the membership,

management also runs the show & are ultimately responsible & accountable for how they may go about it & what may take place,

asking a union to ensure a firing or any disciplinary action is akin to a defense lawyer acting in any way against a client
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Exactly why a union is necessary in aviation.
Management disregards things such as fatigue.
 
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