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Article overview Short article describing little anectodes about pilots sleeping in mid-flight. Originally published in November 1998. Re-edited in December 1999.	don't drowse and fly! by Sergio Ortega - flight 54, this is center, say altitude? - zzzzz... verybody who flies on the regular and trusted airlines is always looking forward to have a flight crew that is competent, experimented and... awake! Here's a short article that might wake up the trusting flyer in you! It CAN happen to anybody According to a research published in the Boston Globe, one pilot out of seven falls asleep on duty. And this happens mostly on the overnight international flights. No wonder they're nicknamed the "red-eye" flights! Who's got the red eyes? The pilots? Maybe... Unfortunately, the tendence is climbing. Today's typical airline pilot has to deal with long, non-stop flights, crossing many time zones, at a point the Captain thinks it's 3 AM and it's sunshine outside, for example. Fortunately, we live in a time the computers on board can take the job... for a while. But anyway nobody trusts computers so much nowadays, especially since the Y2k bug, the syndrom of the year 2000. With the new modern commercial aircraft, the cockpits are made for two people to fly, no longer three. The dual flying system with Captain and First Officer has been made so that one can replace the other. One remains awake, the other sleeps for a while. But what if a flight attendant unlocks and opens the cockpit door and finds both pilots dead tired after counting sheeps jumping on the clouds? It HAPPENS to everybody The pilots start talking about it very openly, as if it was something normal. Bill Jordan, ex-pilot who worked for Eastern Airlines, says that it happened to him a couple of times, and he claims he doesn't know a single co-worker who didn't. And it seems that the pilots don't care too much, and they can't take it anymore. On a NASA experiment, nine pilots have been advised that they were linked to electronic devices measuring their awakeness. But guess what? Four of them couldn't take it anymore and fell asleep. And for my finale: a true anecdote, quite surprising! It's the eighties. A trans-con cargo flies to Los Angeles with two pilots. But they fall asleep and when they wake up, they are one hour too far from Los Angeles, over the Pacific Ocean! Zzzzz... So remember one thing: if your Captain or First Officer BOTH fall asleep, there's always the auto-pilot and the modern technology to replace them. And it is very rare that it causes dangerous incidents. So sit back, relax and enjoy your flight!
	Cockpit: from Midway Airlines (defunct website), modified by Sergio Ortega. Sheep in pilot's thoughts: from the AGECR (defunct website). © 1998-2008, airodyssey.net. All rights reserved. Disclaimer, trademarks, privacy policy.