Oh dear lord...

Sally found this terrifying article in the Hindustan Times today that
talks about new regulations on domestic carriers.

As of today, cabin crews of all domestic airlines will now have to
interact with pilots over the intercom every 30 minutes.

Seems reasonable enough, except that this decision was made after
several incidents of planes flying beyond their destination/ moving
away from flight path after the pilots fell asleep.

Yes, pilots fell asleep aboard one aircraft in Air India's fleet
causing the aircraft to fly past Mumbai, the destination, and on
toward Goa. In addition, one international flight overflew its
destination which is also under investigation.

So, next time you hop on a plane, you may want to say a prayer or two, and consider buying the pilots some coffee.

3 comments:

Sandhya said...

yes, my brother was in that mumbai flight!

Senthil said...

I have been a silent reader of blogs for quite some time now.

Pilots sleeping and missing the airport happens in the US too. The central issue is Overworked pilots. While the FAA has taken action on the pilots, I dont expect DGCA (the Indian FAA equivalent) would do anything concrete

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/3074870/Pilots-sleep-through-landing-procedure.html

shelmes said...

@ Senthil - It's just as frightening anywhere....

Still - the article seems to indicate several recent incidents have occurred... Maybe scheduling needs to be looked at as you suggest.

Another thing I've noticed, but not blogged about has been the large number of American Pilots who've aged out of US system flying planes.