India airliner falls 5,000 feet while captain sleeps

[webfact]

Jet Airways flight plunges 5,000 feet as pilots fall asleep
Soubhik Mitra, Hindustan Times

NEW DELHI: -- Hundreds of Jet Airways passengers on board a Brussels-bound flight from Mumbai faced a major safety scare last week when the plane carrying them plunged by 5,000 feet as both pilots fell asleep.

The incident that took place last Friday is now being probed by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) as the crew has failed to report the matter soon after completing the flight in accordance with the rules laid down by the aviation safety regulator.

A Jet Airways spokesperson confirmed the incident.

“Jet Airways has initiated an internal inquiry into the matter. The airline is also extending all co-operation in the matter to the DGCA by providing all necessary assistance for the inquiry,” said the spokesperson.

According to DGCA sources, both the flight’s commander and first officer fell asleep soon after the aircraft entered the Turkish airspace. Around the same time, the flight descended from 34,000 feet to 29,000 feet without anybody manning the cockpit controls, said a senior DGCA official requesting anonymity.

DGCA sources added that in a bid to hide the serious safety lapse, the pilots did not file the flight safety report (FSR), a mandatory exercise to document any untoward incident during the course of a flight. It even failed to report the matter to the DGCA.

“By holding back the information now it would be difficult to access pilots’ conversations as the digital flight data recorder (DFDR) was not removed soon after the incident,” said a senior DGCA official requesting anonymity.

Full story: http://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/jet-airways-plane-plunges-5-000-feet-as-pilots-fall-asleep-probe-begins/article1-1251955.aspx

-- hindustantimes 2014-08-14

[Boater]

another reason not to fly jet !

[chiang mai]

another reason not to fly jet !

+++1

[koo]

Descending 5000 ft? Faulty autopilot? Or did they fly manually, which is highly improbable in modern passenger flight at cruise altitude and speed?

[JoeThePoster]

That's why rats on a plane are useful. Their squeaking keeps everyone awake.

[chiang mai]

Descending 5000 ft? Faulty autopilot? Or did they fly manually, which is highly improbable in modern passenger flight at cruise altitude and speed?

Perhps read again:

"According to DGCA sources, both the flight’s commander and first officer fell asleep soon after the aircraft entered the Turkish airspace. Around the same time, the flight descended from 34,000 feet to 29,000 feet without anybody manning the cockpit controls, said a senior DGCA official requesting anonymity.

DGCA sources added that in a bid to hide the serious safety lapse, the pilots did not file the flight safety report (FSR), a mandatory exercise to document any untoward incident during the course of a flight. It even failed to report the matter to the DGCA.

“By holding back the information now it would be difficult to access pilots’ conversations as the digital flight data recorder (DFDR) was not removed soon after the incident,” said a senior DGCA official requesting anonymity".

[neverdie]

?

Years ago there was a rumour that a fairly senior but not so intelligent Flighty was seen leaving the cockpit of a aircraft that was half way across the pacific on a long hall flight. She was seen to quietly close the door at which time the flights purser enquired if she had delivered refreshments to the flight deck crew, she replied, "No they're sleeping, I didn't want to wake them up".

Of course, that was probably one of those urban myths....however it can get fairly boring mid flight, just monitoring those instruments, in this case the instruments were monitoring the Pilots.

Must be a frightening thing to suddenly wake up and notice that your mates asleep and the houses below are getting increasingly larger.

I wonder what crap rosters and hours these Pilots had been subjected to in the period leading up to this incident?

[harrry]

I am at a loss to understand this.

THe plane decended 5000 feet and continued at that altitude. Seems like a planned and programmed decent. If in controlled airspace it would have been queeried at the time by ATC and an incident report raised if there was no resonse to their calls so it does seems that they did Aviate, Navigate and Communicate..

[terryp]

why etihad bough into Jet i cant even understand ...but its like many of their partners all 3rd rate and sadly now is just a glimmer of its once great service etc

[Chicog]

The falling asleep may or may not merit punishment (perhaps they were partying too hard, or perhaps they were being worked too hard), but attempting to cover it up is criminal.

[harrry]

http://news.yahoo.com/india-orders-jet-airways-suspend-pilots-mid-air-080649154.html

Gives a little more info.

Apparently ATC did contact them and did make an incident report which means there was no cover up as it was up to the aviation authoriity to contact them.

I notice that the copilot said she was using her laptop at the time.

THis was the same excuse the two US pilots who overflow their destination for a considerable distance used.

[slipperylobster]

Perhaps this explains the missing airline.....

Fell asleep and out of the sky...

[jpinx]

There's more to this than meets the eye for now. A controlled descent of 5,000ft sounds like a scheduled auto pilot task. Who's covering whose ass?

[draftvader]

Not quite as reported above. Al Jazeera has it that the pilot was asleep and the co-pilot engrossed in her tablet!

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia/2014/08/indian-plane-dives-1500m-as-pilot-sleeps-201481485238839673.html

[BlueSkyCowboy]

The falling asleep may or may not merit punishment (perhaps they were partying too hard, or perhaps they were being worked too hard), but attempting to cover it up is criminal.

Criminal behavior comes mostly out of DC. Airplanes do not fall. It had to be programmed into the FMS. Part of India's problem is that some first officers are incredibly inexperienced. just have friends in high places. My guess is that the FO screwed around with the flight management system.

[ggt]

What...no Rats on the plane...to keep the Captain awake...OMG...they have really cut back on amenities...

[harrry]

Descending 5000 ft? Faulty autopilot? Or did they fly manually, which is highly improbable in modern passenger flight at cruise altitude and speed?

Perhps read again:

"According to DGCA sources, both the flight’s commander and first officer fell asleep soon after the aircraft entered the Turkish airspace. Around the same time, the flight descended from 34,000 feet to 29,000 feet without anybody manning the cockpit controls, said a senior DGCA official requesting anonymity.

DGCA sources added that in a bid to hide the serious safety lapse, the pilots did not file the flight safety report (FSR), a mandatory exercise to document any untoward incident during the course of a flight. It even failed to report the matter to the DGCA.

“By holding back the information now it would be difficult to access pilots’ conversations as the digital flight data recorder (DFDR) was not removed soon after the incident,” said a senior DGCA official requesting anonymity".

You are quoting a report from a newspaper. Other sources, with much more complete reports said Captain sleeping (and that is permitted) and the co pilot working on laptop (permitted in most places but now limited in the US after a plane overflew its airport for an hour and the crew were working on their computers) A descent of 5000 ft is a gradual decent probably programed into the computer for action at a waypoint and would be easily missed. They also stated the ATC contacted them. ATC raised an incident report so with an active report there was no need for a further incident (not accident) report by the pilots. If they were needed by the DCA they could be contacted.

Edited August 15, 2014 by harrry

[notbkk]

<script type='text/javascript'>window.mod_pagespeed_start = Number(new Date());</script>

Descending 5000 ft? Faulty autopilot? Or did they fly manually, which is highly improbable in modern passenger flight at cruise altitude and speed?

Perhps read again:

"According to DGCA sources, both the flight’s commander and first officer fell asleep soon after the aircraft entered the Turkish airspace. Around the same time, the flight descended from 34,000 feet to 29,000 feet without anybody manning the cockpit controls, said a senior DGCA official requesting anonymity.

DGCA sources added that in a bid to hide the serious safety lapse, the pilots did not file the flight safety report (FSR), a mandatory exercise to document any untoward incident during the course of a flight. It even failed to report the matter to the DGCA.

“By holding back the information now it would be difficult to access pilots’ conversations as the digital flight data recorder (DFDR) was not removed soon after the incident,” said a senior DGCA official requesting anonymity".

Yes, the controls were not manned which could either mean that the pilots were both asleep or both (or one) absent from the cockpit. In this case it's the first according to reports. So the possibility of manual flying is ruled out. Unless it is a training flight, or unusual circumstances exists, no manual flying is done on passenger long-haul flights.

[jossthaifarang]

Years ago there was a rumour that a fairly senior but not so intelligent Flighty was seen leaving the cockpit of a aircraft that was half way across the pacific on a long hall flight. She was seen to quietly close the door at which time the flights purser enquired if she had delivered refreshments to the flight deck crew, she replied, "No they're sleeping, I didn't want to wake them up".

Of course, that was probably one of those urban myths....however it can get fairly boring mid flight, just monitoring those instruments, in this case the instruments were monitoring the Pilots.

Must be a frightening thing to suddenly wake up and notice that your mates asleep and the houses below are getting increasingly larger.

I wonder what crap rosters and hours these Pilots had been subjected to in the period leading up to this incident?

To my knowledge its quite common for pilots to sleep on long haul flights while on autopilot? No evidence or stories to tell but i've always thought that was pretty standard practice?

[harrry]

Years ago there was a rumour that a fairly senior but not so intelligent Flighty was seen leaving the cockpit of a aircraft that was half way across the pacific on a long hall flight. She was seen to quietly close the door at which time the flights purser enquired if she had delivered refreshments to the flight deck crew, she replied, "No they're sleeping, I didn't want to wake them up".

Of course, that was probably one of those urban myths....however it can get fairly boring mid flight, just monitoring those instruments, in this case the instruments were monitoring the Pilots.

Must be a frightening thing to suddenly wake up and notice that your mates asleep and the houses below are getting increasingly larger.

I wonder what crap rosters and hours these Pilots had been subjected to in the period leading up to this incident?

To my knowledge its quite common for pilots to sleep on long haul flights while on autopilot? No evidence or stories to tell but i've always thought that was pretty standard practice?

One pilot can generally sleep if a two person crew except at certain flight stages. The otther one just sits and monitors the instruments and radio and keeps a lookout. Not much to do. Once they just got out a newsparer and read...especially a large newspaper if they were flying into the sun. This time the reports actually say the co-pilot was on her laptop. She did respond to the ATC call so she obviously was not asleep. This was a fairlyminor incident. Loss of seperation icidents happen every day in most airspaces.

Edited August 15, 2014 by harrry

[notbkk]

Years ago there was a rumour that a fairly senior but not so intelligent Flighty was seen leaving the cockpit of a aircraft that was half way across the pacific on a long hall flight. She was seen to quietly close the door at which time the flights purser enquired if she had delivered refreshments to the flight deck crew, she replied, "No they're sleeping, I didn't want to wake them up".

Of course, that was probably one of those urban myths....however it can get fairly boring mid flight, just monitoring those instruments, in this case the instruments were monitoring the Pilots.

Must be a frightening thing to suddenly wake up and notice that your mates asleep and the houses below are getting increasingly larger.

I wonder what crap rosters and hours these Pilots had been subjected to in the period leading up to this incident?

To my knowledge its quite common for pilots to sleep on long haul flights while on autopilot? No evidence or stories to tell but i've always thought that was pretty standard practice?

No, it's not common at all and there will be a serious safety inquest. However, some airlines allow their pilots to taking turns for short, controlled power naps. There must ALWAYS be one awake and alert.There are proper bunks where they have to take compulsory rest periods on long-haul flights. That goes for the cabin crew as well.

[harrry]

Years ago there was a rumour that a fairly senior but not so intelligent Flighty was seen leaving the cockpit of a aircraft that was half way across the pacific on a long hall flight. She was seen to quietly close the door at which time the flights purser enquired if she had delivered refreshments to the flight deck crew, she replied, "No they're sleeping, I didn't want to wake them up".

Of course, that was probably one of those urban myths....however it can get fairly boring mid flight, just monitoring those instruments, in this case the instruments were monitoring the Pilots.

Must be a frightening thing to suddenly wake up and notice that your mates asleep and the houses below are getting increasingly larger.

I wonder what crap rosters and hours these Pilots had been subjected to in the period leading up to this incident?

To my knowledge its quite common for pilots to sleep on long haul flights while on autopilot? No evidence or stories to tell but i've always thought that was pretty standard practice?

No, it's not common at all and there will be a serious safety inquest. However, some airlines allow their pilots to taking turns for short, controlled power naps. There must ALWAYS be one awake and alert.There are proper bunks where they have to take compulsory rest periods on long-haul flights. That goes for the cabin crew as well.

http://edition.cnn.com/2013/09/26/travel/airline-pilots-asleep-cockpit/

She was awake and responded to thee ATC radio call.

[Shamrock 1234]

Descending 5000 ft? Faulty autopilot? Or did they fly manually, which is highly improbable in modern passenger flight at cruise altitude and speed?

All airliners are flown on auto pilot in the cruise. The algorithim between speed and stall are so close at altitude that it is not possible to comfortably fly a large passenger aircraft, like a Boeing 777 in that envelope. INMHO they turbulence and lost 5000 feet. This would have happened awake or asleep. On a long flight like Mumbai-Brussels it is acceptable for one pilot to take a nap not two. In the good old days there were always three pilots or at least two pilots and a flight engineer on the flight deck. The airlines weer all delighted to see the number shrink to two as they could save on costs! Makes me wonder about the rostering and flying hours of Jet Airways crews.

[chiang mai]

Perhps read again:

"According to DGCA sources, both the flight’s commander and first officer fell asleep soon after the aircraft entered the Turkish airspace. Around the same time, the flight descended from 34,000 feet to 29,000 feet without anybody manning the cockpit controls, said a senior DGCA official requesting anonymity.

DGCA sources added that in a bid to hide the serious safety lapse, the pilots did not file the flight safety report (FSR), a mandatory exercise to document any untoward incident during the course of a flight. It even failed to report the matter to the DGCA.

“By holding back the information now it would be difficult to access pilots’ conversations as the digital flight data recorder (DFDR) was not removed soon after the incident,” said a senior DGCA official requesting anonymity".

You are quoting a report from a newspaper. Other sources, with much more complete reports said Captain sleeping (and that is permitted) and the co pilot working on laptop (permitted in most places but now limited in the US after a plane overflew its airport for an hour and the crew were working on their computers) A descent of 5000 ft is a gradual decent probably programed into the computer for action at a waypoint and would be easily missed. They also stated the ATC contacted them. ATC raised an incident report so with an active report there was no need for a further incident (not accident) report by the pilots. If they were needed by the DCA they could be contacted.

Harry, I'm quoting from the OP, an article from the "Hindustan Times", what more reliable sources of information are needed!

But if indeed you do have more reliable and up to date sources of information, may we see them, please?

[harrry]

Perhps read again:

"According to DGCA sources, both the flight’s commander and first officer fell asleep soon after the aircraft entered the Turkish airspace. Around the same time, the flight descended from 34,000 feet to 29,000 feet without anybody manning the cockpit controls, said a senior DGCA official requesting anonymity.

DGCA sources added that in a bid to hide the serious safety lapse, the pilots did not file the flight safety report (FSR), a mandatory exercise to document any untoward incident during the course of a flight. It even failed to report the matter to the DGCA.

“By holding back the information now it would be difficult to access pilots’ conversations as the digital flight data recorder (DFDR) was not removed soon after the incident,” said a senior DGCA official requesting anonymity".

You are quoting a report from a newspaper. Other sources, with much more complete reports said Captain sleeping (and that is permitted) and the co pilot working on laptop (permitted in most places but now limited in the US after a plane overflew its airport for an hour and the crew were working on their computers) A descent of 5000 ft is a gradual decent probably programed into the computer for action at a waypoint and would be easily missed. They also stated the ATC contacted them. ATC raised an incident report so with an active report there was no need for a further incident (not accident) report by the pilots. If they were needed by the DCA they could be contacted.

Harry, I'm quoting from the OP, an article from the "Hindustan Times", what more reliable sources of information are needed!

But if indeed you do have more reliable and up to date sources of information, may we see them, please?

Allready posted on this forum

http://news.yahoo.com/india-orders-jet-airways-suspend-pilots-mid-air-080649154.html

and

http://rt.com/news/180404-plane-drops-thousands-feet/

http://www.cosmoswatcher.com/news/articles.php/422086/

Edited August 15, 2014 by harrry

[harrry]

Interesting that in Pprun Simon from the Aviation Herald said that flight radar checks showed there had been no altitude deviation. He blames a media beatup. I would post this but Craig said before not to post from PPRN

[Geordie59]

Using the "plunged" in the header is very misleading and incorrect, although it does add some drama to the situation.

[MAJIC]

Mental note: never fly Jet Air again!

[oldsailor35]

another reason not to fly jet !

Please tell us what the other reasons are ?

[memkuk]

"plunged" !? I was on that flight: no turbulence during the whole flight. Didn't notice anything at all. Must have been a slow descent. Now I still have to fly back on the 21st of August. Wish me luck. Got a lot of Buddha amulets with me. That might help, I hope.