Jun 26 2008
Air India pilots go to sleep in flight!
The very irresponsible action by two pilots of Air India came into light when it was reported that both the pilots fast sleep while the flight destined to reach Mumbai from Jaipur flew past its destination towards Goa.
The incident happened about a fortnight ago on the domestic leg of a Dubai-Jaipur-Mumbai flight — IC 612 — which had about 100 passengers on board.
The plane took off from Dubai at 1.35am IST and then from Jaipur at 7am. After operating an overnight flight, fatigue levels peak, and it is supposed that the pilots dozed off after taking off from Jaipur leaving the plane at Auto-pilot mode.
The plane was supposed to reach Mumbai by taking the A 474 South route and since it was on autopilot, it headed in that direction. The pilots were finally woken up by anxious Mumbai air traffic controllers when the plane was about half way to Goa.
“It was only after the aircraft reached Mumbai airspace that air traffic controllers realized it was not responding to any instructions and was carrying on its own course,” said the source.
“The aircraft should have begun its descent about 100 miles from Mumbai, but here it was still at cruising altitude. We checked for hijack and when there was no response we made a SELCAL (selective calling),” said an air traffic controller.
The Buzzer (SELCAL) sound in the cockpit give a jolt to the pilots and they woke up. However the General Manager, Mumbai aerodrome, M G Junghare, denied such happening and claimed that communication failure was the reason behind it.
“The aircraft had a radio communications failure and so could not be contacted. It had gone only 10 or 15 miles off Mumbai and after we ascertained that it was not hijacked we made the SELCAL,” he said.
