So one day my eye lands on a headline: "Schedule Fatigued Pilots Who Fell Asleep". It seems the two man crew for a short hop flight in Hawaii between Oahu and the Big Island -- on Go! Airlines -- decided to catch some Zs while the plane was on autopilot.
Controllers tried unsuccessfully to contact the crew by radio and watched the jet fly to a navigation point and turn toward Hilo's airport without descending. Two other airplanes also tried to contact the Go! crew.
The jet flew 26 nautical miles past Hilo at 21,000 feet before the crew awoke 25 minutes after their last radio transmission. They contacted controllers and landed safely.
A contributing factor was the captain's previously undiagnosed severe obstructive sleep apnea, a condition that likely caused him to experience chronic daytime fatigue and contributed to his falling asleep, the NTSB said.
How comforting to us frequent flyers. But I left out the best part. The part that made me jump up and shout "Yes! Yes! I knew it!"
Go! is a unit of Mesa Airlines.
I've read it ten times now and I'm still just sitting here nodding my head.
In other news, as a follow-up to my disastrous trip back from Moab on US Airways, wherein they absolutely hosed me over a cancelled flight, I happened upon this story about airlines being fined for hosing folks who get bumped or have their flights cancelled. An interesting stat: In the first six months of last year (2008) the Dept. of Transportation received 50 complaints from US Airways passengers who received insufficient compensation. The DOT, in turn, fined Useless Airways $140,000 for their transgressions.
Now let's see. Let's assume for every complaint the DOT received there were 50 others who, like me, just tried to get compensation from the airlines and gave up after being told to talk to the hand. And let's assume every hosed passenger saved US Airways an average of $100 in compensation (vouchers, refunds, whatever). That means US Airways had 2500 non-complaints (50 non-complaints for each of the 50 complaints) for which they save $100 each, for a total of $250,000. Since they were fined $140,000, they came out ahead by $110,000. Seems to me shafting your customers is worth the risk.
This is me turning into a conspiracy crank before your very eyes.
Oh, and one last airline observation. I am sick and tired of getting hip checked in my aisle seat every time some wide load flight attendant lumbers through the cabin. If you're going to design planes with those narrow aisles, at least give us proper stewardesses who could fit between the seats without greasing up their thighs.
