Slashdot Mirror
Snoozing Pilot Mistakes Venus For Aircraft; Panic, Injuries Ensue
Cazekiel writes "In January 2011, an Air Canada Boeing 767 carrying 95 passengers and eight crew members was on route to Zurich from Toronto when its First Officer, fatigued and disoriented from a long nap he'd taken, panicked in seeing what he believed to be a U.S. cargo plane on a collision course with his aircraft. The panicking F.O. pushed forward on the control column to make a rapid descent. Only, it wasn't an aircraft he'd been looking at, but Venus. According to the article: 'The airliner dropped about 400 feet before the captain pulled back on the control column. Fourteen passengers and two crew were hurt, and seven needed hospital treatment. None were wearing seat belts, even though the seat-belt sign was on.' The only danger in this situation had been the F.O. napping for 75 minutes instead of the maximum 40, as the disorientation and confusion stemming from deeper sleep was the culprit in this mix-up. However, the Air Canada Pilots Association, 'has long pressured authorities to take the stresses of night flying into account when setting the maximum hours a pilot can work,' taking into account that North Atlantic night-flights are hardest on an already-fatigued pilot."
Were many beavers injured?
then they could just show video of what happens if you don't use your seatbelt on an aircraft to that 10% of idiots that know better instead of the boring safety talk.
Mesdames et Messieurs, dans le cas d'une collision interplanétaire s'il vous plaît attachez vos ceintures ...
Ladies and Gentlemen, in the event of an interplanetary collision please fasten your seatbelts...
It's too big to be a space station. I have a very bad feeling about this.
Luckily it wasn't in America. If it was, the TSA would stop allowing pilots through checkpoints, since they're clearly a flight risk.
Everyone is piling on this guy now, but think about what would have happened if he'd actually HIT Venus - nobody would have survived that! Think, people, THINK!
We may never know.
[End Of Line]
I can totally sympathize with this pilot. True story .. I was driving through Yukon a few years ago and I had been on the road for twelve hours that I could barely stay awake so I pulled off in a rest area, climbed in the back seat, and fell asleep.
At some point, another driver pulled into the rest area and his lights woke me up. All I saw were trees and I thought I had fallen asleep at the wheel and crashed in the woods. I panicked. I climed out of my sleeping bag, climbed into the front seat, started my car, and pulled a 360 before I realized what the hell was going on. The other driver probably thought I was nuts.
Moral of the story ... Thank god I'm not a pilot :)
just fly cathay pacific
Sounds great! OK then, let me just check out the options for Zurich to Toronto on Cathay. Hmm... OK seems we've got Zurich to Hong Kong, then Hong Kong to Toronto. Only 33 hours of travel, compares to 9 hours on Air Canada, at three times the cost. Makes perfect sense.
On slashdot, AC == Anonymous Coward. Find another acronym.
OTOH, the following actually makes some kind of sense:
Its not just that 9 hours of Anonymous Coward can seem like 33 hours of root canal; but Anonymous Coward has an odd idea of what 9 hours means....
The good news is that the evasive action was successful, and the plane did not hit Venus.