Sleeping... Pilots?

This is three and a half years old and it's never come to light? Ya gotta give them credit for sweeping this under for so long!

The little bit from the report make it sound like the whole event is excusable. :dunno:
 
I always say to whomever is my copilot, "Don't let me wake up and catch you sleeping!"
 
I can see it now. The government that gave you ELTs that don't work will now mandate a "snooze button" feature that will induce you to punch a button on the panel every 10 minutes to acknowledge that you're not asleep. Coming soon to a TSO near you!!
 
Ken Ibold said:
I can see it now. The government that gave you ELTs that don't work will now mandate a "snooze button" feature that will induce you to punch a button on the panel every 10 minutes to acknowledge that you're not asleep. Coming soon to a TSO near you!!
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...and hooked to an air horn in the cockpit if you fail to push the button on schedule.

HONK! :lightning::lightning: OK, I'm awake!!!!

-Skip
 
Ken Ibold said:
I can see it now. The government that gave you ELTs that don't work will now mandate a "snooze button" feature that will induce you to punch a button on the panel every 10 minutes to acknowledge that you're not asleep. Coming soon to a TSO near you!!
Click to expand...
Actually, I'd kinda like that in my car sometimes, on long trips. :redface:
 
Bill Jennings said:
This doesn't bode well for the NASA ASRS program. If pilots start getting called to the carpet in the media (and/or elsewhere), these reports are going to drop to zero.
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this report was from a telephone survey that NASA did of pilots over the last few years, it is completely seperate from the ASRS program.
 
Ken Ibold said:
I can see it now. The government that gave you ELTs that don't work will now mandate a "snooze button" feature that will induce you to punch a button on the panel every 10 minutes to acknowledge that you're not asleep. Coming soon to a TSO near you!!
Click to expand...
I know you have never done this, Ken... but have you ever seen your wife repeatedly push the snooze alarm without really waking up?

-Skip
 
Ken Ibold said:
I can see it now. The government that gave you ELTs that don't work will now mandate a "snooze button" feature that will induce you to punch a button on the panel every 10 minutes to acknowledge that you're not asleep. Coming soon to a TSO near you!!
Click to expand...

Already here in the 777. At about 10 minutes we get a message on our screen that says "Pilot Response". Moving almost any control will cancel it. If that doesn't happen we get an aural warning. If we don't respond to that, shortly thereafter, we get another aural warning that is louder. Kind of hard to sleep through that.
 
Greg Bockelman said:
Already here in the 777. At about 10 minutes we get a message on our screen that says "Pilot Response". Moving almost any control will cancel it. If that doesn't happen we get an aural warning. If we don't respond to that, shortly thereafter, we get another aural warning that is louder. Kind of hard to sleep through that.
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...not that you've ever heard it, right, Greg? :D
 
SCCutler said:
...not that you've ever heard it, right, Greg? :D
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LOL. Don't have to be asleep to hear it. Just don't do anything with the airplane for 15 minutes. Not hard on a trans Pacific flight between reporting points.
 
Since it was reported to NASA and the pilots' company, I can't see how this was "swept under the rug." And it ain't the first time it's happened, either. I know of one involving a 727 going HOU-MSY very late at night, and all three guys fell asleep. One of them woke up about 100 east of JAX with nothing but black out front and silence on the radios. They just barely made it back to JAX!
 
Greg Bockelman said:
Already here in the 777. At about 10 minutes we get a message on our screen that says "Pilot Response". Moving almost any control will cancel it. If that doesn't happen we get an aural warning. If we don't respond to that, shortly thereafter, we get another aural warning that is louder. Kind of hard to sleep through that.
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So, you guys can nap in 20min shifts. :D
 
Actually, railroad engineers are required to radio in and report every so many miles to make sure taht they're not asleep. Perhaps they should take that pilot response feature from the 777 and apply it to other aircraft...
 
Ken Ibold said:
I can see it now. The government that gave you ELTs that don't work will now mandate a "snooze button" feature that will induce you to punch a button on the panel every 10 minutes to acknowledge that you're not asleep. Coming soon to a TSO near you!!
Click to expand...
Like the dead man switches that the train engineers have.
 
Greg Bockelman said:
Already here in the 777. At about 10 minutes we get a message on our screen that says "Pilot Response". Moving almost any control will cancel it. If that doesn't happen we get an aural warning. If we don't respond to that, shortly thereafter, we get another aural warning that is louder. Kind of hard to sleep through that.
Click to expand...
Hook a TENS unit (set to stun) to your leg which contracts the muscles which kicks the rudder...all involuntarily and completely autonomic. ZZZZZZZZZZZ
 
Both of us slept our way across most of OK on the way to Ada. I drowsily woke up and spotted our destination but it took the mental power of both of us to figure we should probably start to descend. We overflew to about 08 nm past and then turned around to make an uneventful landing. Neither of us were in the mood to push the nose over very much. Long legs on the back side of the clock caused that.

A local pilot returning from a flight to upstate NY had fallen asleep and woke up almost 20 nm out to sea. He made it back in one piece. Lucky him.

Fatigue is the method. **** poor planning is the culprit.
 
I used to slip up forward in the Hawkeye and catch both guys asleep at the wheel, and George doing a 4.0 job keeping us straight and level (a rare occurrance THAT was!), especially on the oh-dark-thirty launches. Fortunately for us, we usually flew a 100nm racetrack pattern, so no course reversal was a pretty good hint to slip forward and check on the crew. The aileron bell crank came thu the back cockpit bulkhead and usually got someone's attention when wiggled ... sometimes a bit more vigorous wiggle was required, depending on how warm the sunshine thru the windscreen and how early the briefing was ... :)
 
I know some commercial pilots who talk about setting COM2 to the ATIS freq at the destination and turning it up REAL LOUD to make sure they're awake. Can't see trying it, myself! :no:
 
Ron Levy said:
Since it was reported to NASA and the pilots' company, I can't see how this was "swept under the rug." And it ain't the first time it's happened, either. I know of one involving a 727 going HOU-MSY very late at night, and all three guys fell asleep. One of them woke up about 100 east of JAX with nothing but black out front and silence on the radios. They just barely made it back to JAX!
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Geeze. Turning an hour flight into three? I wonder if they logged the time while asleep? :)
 
Nothing wrong with a little power nap here and there. Our regs even direct "strategic uses of short periods of rest" for no more than two crew members on the flight deck in non critical phases of flight.
 
AWACSEng said:
Nothing wrong with a little power nap here and there. Our regs even direct "strategic uses of short periods of rest" for no more than two crew members on the flight deck in non critical phases of flight.
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The USAF buys off on that. The FAA does not (yet). The British CAA is playing with it (for no more than one at a time).
 
If the FAA does not buy off on that, what is the max crew duty day before a relief crew is required? Anything over 16 hrs. and we need an extra pilot,nav, and fe.
 
AWACSEng said:
If the FAA does not buy off on that, what is the max crew duty day before a relief crew is required?
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Greg, who flies the ORD-Tokyo run in 777's, knows that stuff a lot better than I for airline ops. The Part 135 rule is no more than 8 hours in the air and no more than 14 hours on duty for a single pilot; two pilots together can go 10 hours in the air, but still only 14 hours on duty.
 
Part 121 says that a Pilot cannot be at their duty station more than 8 hours in a duty period. Any flight over 8 hours requires one relief pilot and anything over 12 requires 2 relief pilots. I suppose anything over 16, which is rare, would require 5, but I haven't heard anything about that.
 
gprellwitz said:
I know some commercial pilots who talk about setting COM2 to the ATIS freq at the destination and turning it up REAL LOUD to make sure they're awake. Can't see trying it, myself! :no:
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HmmmmmmB)


I think people might notice if we both feel asleep...it's hard to trim a plane that well with no a/p.
 
Hasn't the airline pilots assn tried for years to reduce the duty hours maximums? Flying is much more draining, and the consequences of poor performance more critical than 90% of other jobs...maybe such reports will help their cause.
 
Greg Bockelman said:
Part 121 says that a Pilot cannot be at their duty station more than 8 hours in a duty period. Any flight over 8 hours requires one relief pilot and anything over 12 requires 2 relief pilots. I suppose anything over 16, which is rare, would require 5, but I haven't heard anything about that.
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Can't be scheduled for more than 8 hours. We go over that every now and then on bad wx days, so long as our schedule isn't changed. I've heard about the 16+ hours requiring 5, but I can't quote the FAR. I don't know how it is for you long-haul guys, but we have a max of 16 hour duty day before we turn into pumpkins where we sit. We also need at least a min of 9 hours rest, reducable to 8 so long as we get compensatory rest on the other side (either 10, 11, or 12 hours the following night depending upon how much we fly), and we have to be able to look back the previous seven days and see 24 hours off (noon to noon on day six into day seven makes you legal to work 12 days in a row, I found out last week). Is that about what you have?
 
So by the looks of things, USAF regs are more liberal in regards to duty day, but more restrictive about crew rest (we need 12 hrs.)
 
Shorter duty day is not the realistic answer. That is the Union answer. Allowing strategic rest is more logical in today's world of the strained airline schedules. Just an outsider's opinion.
 
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