Snoozing Pilot Mistakes Venus For Aircraft; Panic, Injuries Ensue 307
Cazekiel writes "In January 2011, an Air Canada Boeing 767 carrying 95 passengers and eight crew members was on route to Zurich from Toronto when its First Officer, fatigued and disoriented from a long nap he'd taken, panicked in seeing what he believed to be a U.S. cargo plane on a collision course with his aircraft. The panicking F.O. pushed forward on the control column to make a rapid descent. Only, it wasn't an aircraft he'd been looking at, but Venus. According to the article: 'The airliner dropped about 400 feet before the captain pulled back on the control column. Fourteen passengers and two crew were hurt, and seven needed hospital treatment. None were wearing seat belts, even though the seat-belt sign was on.' The only danger in this situation had been the F.O. napping for 75 minutes instead of the maximum 40, as the disorientation and confusion stemming from deeper sleep was the culprit in this mix-up. However, the Air Canada Pilots Association, 'has long pressured authorities to take the stresses of night flying into account when setting the maximum hours a pilot can work,' taking into account that North Atlantic night-flights are hardest on an already-fatigued pilot."
Re:radar... (Score:2, Interesting)
Weather radar? Yes. Traffic collision alerting system? Yes, though not much use unless the guy in the other aircraft has turned his transponder on...
Re:How about a separate bunk? (Score:4, Interesting)
The rule in this case is for naps-in-chair to be limited to 40 minutes to prevent slow-wave sleep, longer naps with slow-wave permitted are to be done in a separate bunk. The pilots broke that rule. There are other rules around "recovery period" between sleep and flying.
An antenna outside an office window... (Score:5, Interesting)
I used to fly my lightplane back and forth from my home in the San Francisco Bay Area to my Los Angeles office on the fourth floor of a building in Hollywood.
There was an antenna across the street that looked exactly like the profile of an airplane heading toward us. Whenever I was walking down the hall and would glance out the window, I would see that and immediately, uncontrollably, startle. When you see a plane that close you literally have a second or two to make a decision, and it becomes a reflex to act immediately. Now, walking down the hall of a building no reaction is actually called for; but it didn't stop me from jumping!
Re:Is this a bad thing? (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.alpa.org/FTDTFightingFatigue/tabid/3370/Default.aspx/ [alpa.org]
Re:Venus was incidental (Score:3, Interesting)
1) It is very difficult, even during the daytime, to work out whether an aircraft is above or below you by looking out of the window. At night, there is often no visual horizon at all, so you are seeing a big expanse of sky with stars/planets/aeroplanes/ships in it with no references to judge their relative positioning.
2) Pilots are not superhuman. We have the same evolved circadian rhythms as everyone else and suffer from fatigue in the same way. We are diurnal mammals and staying up through the night means your performance suffers in a similar way to what it would if you missed a night's sleep at home.
3) In-flight napping is legal and encouraged under the regulations I work with, with certain provisos. Long-gone are the notions of the steely-eyed pilot constantly scanning the sky for danger at 3am on the body clock: we just aren't capable of that, which is why we have a plethora of automatic systems to take care of most of the trivia.
4) If you think this incident was bad, have a look at the proposed new European "safety" legislation, where you could end up on-duty for 21-22hrs in certain circumstances. Oh, and they've ignored just about every piece of peer-reviewed scientific research from the last 50 years in drafting the new rules...
Re:Is this a bad thing? (Score:4, Interesting)
Me and my friend were driving round Europe on holiday when we were 18. We'd got to Munich late, and decided just to park up between 2 cars in a small road in the middle of Munich, and sleep in the car. So, we both got in our sleeping bags, and went to sleep, in the front two seat reclined back almost horizontal.
The next thing I know, my friend was asking me what the fuck I thought I was doing. We were now parked in the middle of the road, completely blocking it.
Apparently, I'd just sat up, entered in the 4 digit immobiliser code, started the car, carefully driven the car into the middle of the road, parked and then happily gone back to sleep. This was in a manual car in my sleeping bag. I had absoluteley no recollection of any of this.
Anyway, I managed to get the car back in approximately the right place (about a foot and a half from the kerb though). My friend did spend a few minutes persuading me that we were parked in the middle of the road in Munich. I had been having a dream that we were in a campsite in Holland, for some reason, and the campsite manager had been telling me to move the car.
I had been known to sleepwalk a little in the past, but this was my only sleep-drive (that I know of, anyway).