Both pilots fall asleep and plane flies on autopilot
One of the pilots indicated in a report to the UK’s Civil Aviation Authority that the pair nodded off after both had only five hours sleep in the previous two nights.
Details of last month’s incident, on Aug 13, come at a time when UK pilots’ organisation Balpa is unhappy at proposed European changes to flight-time regulations.
A CAA spokesman said: “This was a serious incident but an isolated one. I think lessons will be learnt from this. We are circulating this report within the industry.
“We don’t know why the pilots had had so little sleep before this flight. They were taking it in turns to have rest periods, with the one always checking the autopilot and it looks as if both fell asleep at the same time.”
Details of the incident, logged by the CAA as a mandatory occurrence report, were obtained by a news agency which had asked for incidents of pilot fatigue.
The CAA did not say which airline was involved, nor where the aircraft, an Airbus A330, was travelling.
The report was headed: “Flight crew suffering from symptoms of severe fatigue.”
It went on: “Reporter [almost certainly the captain] suggests both members of flight crew had only five hours sleep in two nights due to longer duty periods with insufficient opportunity to sleep.
“Both crew rested for 20-minute rotations and fell asleep.”
More than half of pilots have fallen asleep on the flight deck, according to a survey the by the pilots’ union.
And of the 56% who admitted nodding off, as many as 29% said they awoke to find the other pilot asleep.
Of the 500 commercial pilots polled, 43% said they believed their abilities had been compromised at least once a month in the last six months by tiredness, with 84% saying it has been compromised at some stage during the past six months.
Also, 31% did not believe their airline had a culture that lent itself to reporting tiredness concerns, with only half (51%) saying they believed their airline chief executive would back them if they refused to fly because of tiredness.
