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Pilot flies past destination after "falling asleep"
A pilot overshot his destination by nearly 50 Kilometers after 'falling asleep at the switch'. He was however able to turn around and make it to his destination. -Daily Mail (www.dailymail.co.uk) More...
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I believe lots of pilots , particularly in light planes have done it (even Charles Lindbergh in the Spirit of St Louis), but the vast majority lived to learn the lesson. I did once, delivering a Tomahawk, again after a full day's work, drone of the engine, etc., but the lesson was severely learned and I was one of the lucky ones. Does this add credence to the FAA's concern re sleep apnea?
:-)
It would be great if you could share a little more about what it was like to fly checks overnight. I think I heard that it used to be a flurry of activity. Did you fly from federal reserve city to another federal reserve city, or were you taking them from small town to big town. It's funny that "out of town checks" used to take 5 business days to clear. How many nights a week did you do this, and who loaded the cargo? What else seems outdated about the adventure these days?
Beech 18 w/ cantankerous R985, penetrating Tstorms lines that build from Dallas up the Hwy 75 corridor w/ broken radars and a VOR needle (and a little help from ATC). Bat wings up, cockpit lights on bright, baseball hat pulled down and sunglasses on. Wore rubber boots as the windshield leaked and I hate wet feet. If you could keep it within 1000' it was considered a good ride. lets not talk about Winter Ops.. lol
6 stops from NW Ark to Dallas and 7 coming home. Taxi in, shut down one engine and start pitching boxes of checks out the door (color coding helped). Turn time form Ldg to TO was under 10 mins (or you heard about it from the DO).
Got fired New Years Eve because there wasnt a legal alternate within range of "Nicole". He hired me back the next morning as there were no Flight Instructors available to take my job the following night (as he had promised). lol
Then there are the nights full of stars and we could (and did) navigate via the Hale-Bopp Comet. Drinking a Mt Dew and eating sunflower seeds with feet on the dash, and my dog Lois in the copilot seat. Oil pressures steady singing as loud as I could to the cassette tape in my new walkman. The entire sky to yourself.
Kids these days have it pretty easy... lol
6 stops from NW Ark to Dallas and 7 coming home. Taxi in, shut down one engine and start pitching boxes of checks out the door (color coding helped). Turn time form Ldg to TO was under 10 mins (or you heard about it from the DO).
Got fired New Years Eve because there wasnt a legal alternate within range of "Nicole". He hired me back the next morning as there were no Flight Instructors available to take my job the following night (as he had promised). lol
Then there are the nights full of stars and we could (and did) navigate via the Hale-Bopp Comet. Drinking a Mt Dew and eating sunflower seeds with feet on the dash, and my dog Lois in the copilot seat. Oil pressures steady singing as loud as I could to the cassette tape in my new walkman. The entire sky to yourself.
Kids these days have it pretty easy... lol
It sucked, lol. Dark, cold, icy, single engine IFR. I built some time filling in 4-5 days per month for a 135 operator in the Midwest back in the 80's. OMA, ,SUX, DSM, LNK, CID, ALO, FOD, etc. As far as I recall it was a 5/day week affair. We usually helped to load to make sure the bags were in the correct location for C/G, and so we could leave sooner!
I hope this pilot has learned a great lesson, gets his rest, and gets another chance. The best learning is to do it wrong and live to see the consequences. I'll admit I fell asleep in a cockpit many decades ago. It was my night job after working a full plus day job. Just me and a bunch of cancelled checks in a warm cockpit on a cold night with the engines giving a steady hum. I woke up with my destination below me and made up a believable, to me anyway, story for my radio silence. It has never happened again.