Both pilots fell asleep for almost half an hour on a Batik Air domestic flight in Indonesia. Finally, one of them woke up in time, adjusted the direction of the flight and all 153 passengers and six crew members landed safely. The Le Figaro server reported on the incident from the end of January.
The Airbus A320 plane was heading from the island of Celebes in the north of the archipelago to the capital, Jakarta. One of the pilots did not rest the night before take-off and about half an hour after take-off he asked the co-pilot to replace him, saying that he would rest. The co-pilot agreed and took control of the plane, but he also fell asleep after a while, according to a report from the aviation authority.
Exactly 28 minutes after the last recorded transmission, one of the pilots awoke to find the other pilot asleep and the plane on the wrong course. He immediately woke up his colleague and, after establishing a connection with Jakarta, specified the course. The entire flight lasted two hours and 35 minutes and no one was hurt.
After the incident, Indonesia’s Air Traffic Safety Agency appealed to carriers to observe safety rules and give pilots sufficient rest. However, this does not happen in practice, pilots tend to be tired and the rules are often broken. At the same time, Indonesia is spread over more than 17,000 islands and is completely dependent on air transport, wrote Le Figaro.
