Pilots fall asleep on flight carrying 153 passengers, orders probe

JAKARTA: A flight was delayed to land for several hours after the pilot and co-pilot fell asleep. The Batik Air flight which departed from South East Sulawesi to Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia, was delayed due to the pilots’ sleep. It was delayed for two hours and 35 minutes. The information about the incident that happened on January 25 surfaced now.

The direction of the flight changed when the 32-year-old pilot and the 28-year-old co-pilot fell asleep for 28 minutes. It is reported that 153 passengers and four crew members were safe and there are no damages to the plane. The National Transportation Safety Committee (KNKT) had ordered an investigation into the incident.

The pilots involved in the incident had been temporarily suspended.

One of the pilots had not rested adequately on the night before the flight. About 90 minutes after the plane took off, the captain asked for permission from his second-in-command to rest for a while, with the request being granted.

The co-pilot then took over command of the aircraft, but also inadvertently fell asleep.

The second-in-command had one-month-old twin babies. His wife took care of the babies and he assisted while at home.

A few minutes after the last recorded transmission by the co-pilot, the area control centre in Jakarta tried to contact the aircraft. It received no answer.

Twenty-eight minutes after the last recorded transmission, the pilot woke up and realised his co-pilot was asleep and that the aircraft was not on the correct flight path.
He immediately woke his colleague up, responded to the calls from Jakarta and corrected the flight path, the report said.

The plane landed safely after the incident. Investigators said the two were Indonesians.