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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.
Do planes no longer have this?
Never say never. Ah!! I did it again!
Personally, I'd prefer my pilots to take evasive action when they feel its neccessary, and not pick up a habit of second guessing themselves to avoid bad PR. Yes, passengers were injured, but TFA notes that the seatbelt light was on.
May the Maths Be with you!
If the seatbelt light was on and the passengers were injured from not wearing their seatbelt, then it's their own fault. The seabelt sign IS A LAWFUL ORDER from the flight crew. They need to STFU.
Emo Plilips & Pauly Shore star in "High Air"
Snoozing Pilot Mistakes Venus For Aircraft; Panic, [Injuries] Hilarity Ensues...
Laters Sol "Have you found the secrets of the universe? Asked Zebade "I'm sure I left them here somewhere"
It sounds like the FO was napping, woke up and immediately put the plane into a dive based on a snap judgement, and the Captian (who we presume was not flying the plane or manning the controls) recognized the error and corrected.
It sounded like nobody was flying the plan (autopilot presumably), but that the FO, who was napping, was actually on the controls. It sounds more like a problem with pilots sleeping while they should be awake and alert. The article was so light it was impossible to actually tell, through.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Thank goodness he missed the planet by 67 million miles..
You have a union, use it. Stop flying. Oh wait, this is Canuckistan, where the government has to do everything.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
It's a planet!
Scientists point out problems, engineers fix them
altslashdot.org: The future of slashdot.
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!
The media reports are all harping on the idea of "crash dive to avoid Venus", but that's incidential. There was an oncoming aircraft (but not on a collision course) and the FO erred in thinking it was going to collide. Source - TSB report.
at least he didn't dive to avoid hitting Uranus
emirates = hot hostesses and the option to watch the front-mounted camera on the entertainment system. with all the chaos of landing, it's comforting to know you're not going to run into the terminal.
The only danger in this situation had been the F.O. napping for 75 minutes instead of the maximum 40
And all the people not wearing seatbelts.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
We may never know.
[End Of Line]
95 passengers on a 767 means room to stretch out! Unlike the cattle cars I usually have to fly, packed in like kippers. *shakes tiny fist at Delta, Frontier, etc*
Funny you should mention that front-mounted camera; I've seen it on the overhead video screens of other eastern airlines as well (Thai, JAL for example) during takeoff and landing but never on any of the western airlines. I wonder why...
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
Could have happened to anyone.
Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.
There was an oncoming aircraft on the same flight path 1000ft below. The FO was visually searching for that aircraft, saw venus, panicked, and put the aircraft nose-down.
The captain immediately assumed control of the plane and put the plane nose-up.
The planes were on the exact same flight path thanks to GPS. They were both depending on the 1000ft difference in altitude to prevent a head-on collision. A better idea is for each plane to offset right of the flight path by 1 mile.
He did not take evasive action to avoid Venus, but did point to Venus and briefly discussed if it was an aircraft when he first woke up. He later made the evasive maneuver when he misjudged the position of another aircraft. The two events are only connected by the fact the pilot was entirely too exhausted.
The "fasten seatbelt" lights are on for good reason: if the airpline suddenly loses altitude, you won't crack your skull on the roof.
You should avoid spending any time at all without your seatbelts in an airplane because, in some rare occurrences, these drops will happen without any warning at all.
There was an oncoming aircraft on the same flight path 1000ft below. The FO was visually searching for that aircraft, saw venus, panicked, and put the aircraft nose-down.
Go figure, a groggy pilot's panicked reaction put the plane closer to danger.
The enemies of Democracy are
Why not have the pilots take their naps in a separate bunk near the crew compartment. It gives them better rest, and the act of climbing out of the bunk and walking to the cockpit gives them time to help shake off the grogginess.
Or is it better to have them sleep in their seats so they are immediately ready to step in if needed?
Considering that Venus is right now very very bright this is not that surprising. Also Venus is standing unusually high in the sky in evenings.
Common sense should let people keep their safety belts on anyway.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
This is an actual official transport canada incident investigation report with no spin whatsoever concluding the facts of an actual aviation incident in which people were injured. The timing to coincide with the labour dispute is purely coincidence.
The article goes further than that however and quotes how the pilot's union is pushing for better regulations. so basically the Union has grasped on to this report as an excuse to spin for their agenda.
As for ""coming close to wildcat strikes" they have actually been ruled by a judge to have already participated in illegal strike action through fake sick calls. so they've already crossed that line.
Nothing in this article on the management point of view.
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.
We cannot have laws against sleeping, as it is a natural need. However we could improve safety by giving customers more information.
For instance, a law could force airlines company to tell customers how many hours a week the pilot worked, and how many flight he did in a row. That would help us avoiding pilots made dangerous by insane airline work policy.
If you bring your own soda from home, YOU HATE AMERICA.
I can't wait until movie theaters pick up that line.
West Jet is cheaper anyways...
Hey there you Anonymous Coward, lemme know how WestJet works for you the next time you want to fly Zurich to Toronto non-stop.
Air Canada has treated its employees so poorly for so long its employees treat their customers in due kind
Weird. I've flown Air Canada many times and never had any complaint about the people on the plane. Being stuck on board for three hours while they changed a wheel, yes, but even when I've been flying cattle class rather than business they've been fine.
Please, please, please -- there are tons of very well-considered safety points in the real report, and the linked articles are very very very wrong.
http://www.tsb.gc.ca/eng/rapports-reports/aviation/2011/a11f0012/a11f0012.asp
To quote:
At 0155, the captain made a mandatory position report with the Shanwick Oceanic control centre. This aroused the FO. The FO had rested for 75 minutes but reported not feeling altogether well. Coincidentally, an opposite–direction United States Air Force Boeing C–17 at 34 000 feet appeared as a traffic alert and collision avoidance system (TCAS) target on the navigational display (ND). The captain apprised the FO of this traffic.
Over the next minute or so, the captain adjusted the map scale on the ND in order to view the TCAS target 5 and occasionally looked out the forward windscreen to acquire the aircraft visually. The FO initially mistook the planet Venus for an aircraft but the captain advised again that the target was at the 12 o'clock position and 1000 feet below. The captain of ACA878 and the oncoming aircraft crew flashed their landing lights. The FO continued to scan visually for the aircraft. When the FO saw the oncoming aircraft, the FO interpreted its position as being above and descending towards them. The FO reacted to the perceived imminent collision by pushing forward on the control column. The captain, who was monitoring TCAS target on the ND, observed the control column moving forward and the altimeter beginning to show a decrease in altitude. The captain immediately disconnected the autopilot and pulled back on the control column to regain altitude. It was at this time the oncoming aircraft passed beneath ACA878. The TCAS did not produce a traffic or resolution advisory.
Obi-wan voice: "That's no moon! Its a ..."
Have gnu, will travel.
Is it just me or does is sound like the PIC's action of pulling back so rapidly was a bigger problem than the initial mistake? In his correction, he overshot the assigned altitude by as much as the initial descent went under it. It really just sounds to me like everyone was just having a bad night. Any flight you can walk away from, though...
I hear they're "the way things work" in the US... big difference in mentality I think
You would be wrong. They've been illegal in the USA since 1935.
After naptime, you cannot fly the plane for 20 minutes, period. When you want to perform a violent maneuver, you shall consult the person to your right or left and get agreement first.
I used to fly my lightplane back and forth from my home in the San Francisco Bay Area to my Los Angeles office on the fourth floor of a building in Hollywood.
There was an antenna across the street that looked exactly like the profile of an airplane heading toward us. Whenever I was walking down the hall and would glance out the window, I would see that and immediately, uncontrollably, startle. When you see a plane that close you literally have a second or two to make a decision, and it becomes a reflex to act immediately. Now, walking down the hall of a building no reaction is actually called for; but it didn't stop me from jumping!
I love Mondays. On a Monday, anything is possible.
New regulations are expected after it was revealed that the pilot in fact knew it was the planet Venus but the mushrooms he had taken had just kicked in and he was afraid of hitting the planet. New regulations will restrict the use of mushrooms to really long and boring daytime flights
Its not just that 9 hours of AC can seem like 33 hours of root canal; but AC has an odd idea of what 9 hours means....
what is pleasant about being herded into a overstuffed tube? your romantic idealism of commercial flight died with propellers and monochrome only film
True. US aviation labor is governed by Railway Labor Act (http://railwaylaboract.com/airline.labor.relations.htm/ Job actions are illegal until the NMB releases either party to proceed: "As long as the NMB maintains a matter within its mediation jurisdiction, neither labor nor management lawfully are free to engage in self-help, such as by a labor strike or by the implementation of management's proposed rates of pay and working conditions. "
Have you ever noticed that anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac?
Pilot snoozes on YOU!
This sig is not paradoxical or ironic.
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....
Hurry up and implode already so we can get some actual competition and competitive prices.
The good news is that the evasive action was successful, and the plane did not hit Venus.
I found myself on a couple of SAS flights a few weeks back and they had cameras too (the trans-Atlantic portion even had selectable cameras).
I'd be more suspicious of Venus... clearly it was trying to take down a passenger aircraft
And Venus is the morning star, also known as Lucifer.
Please take note! Only hijinks can ensue. Nothing else can ensue, ever. Including injuries. Even if injuries do *technically* ensue, please use a different word to describe the phenomenon.
Ground: "Relax, it's only a UFO"
Table-ized A.I.
I want my pilot(s) to react automatically and fast in all situations. If that FO was right, and the C-17 was in their path, he would be a hero instead of a dimwit. I will gladly fly with him. He's safe.
I think those are the ones that the parent meant. Gives you some idea of what kind of situation it must have been!
You are an idiot or just didn't bother to read the facts. The FO was avoiding a REAL plane that was flying BELOW them by DIVING! Can you see a problem with that? Don't just read the headline and think you know anything. The FO took the plane out of safety INTO danger because he wrongly presumed a plane he had been told was safely below them to be on the same level. This is BAD and why procedures matter so fucking much. Countless crashes and subsequent loss of life have been caused by pilots mis-interpreting situations and then wrong correcting for them rather then first trying to determine what is really going on. If the captain had not interrupted the dive, it might have caused a collision because now both aircraft were on the same level rather then the 1000 feet separation demanded for safety.
Maybe it would be smart to not allow pilots to nap in the pilot seat and to do a mandatory 5 minute exercise before returning to the controls. And to have three pilots as standard so one can sleep, stretch his/her legs and two are always operating the aircraft. Oh wait, then you might have to pay more! Can't have that can we.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
There was an oncoming aircraft on the same flight path 1000ft below.
I was going to call bullshit, but apparently not; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reduced_Vertical_Separation_Minima
What could possibly go... Oh, wait.
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
Finnair A320s have 'em too.
If the seatbelt light was on and the passengers were injured from not wearing their seatbelt, then it's their own fault. The seabelt sign IS A LAWFUL ORDER from the flight crew. They need to STFU.
The seatbelt sign is totally irrelevant to this.
It *wasn't* on "on the off chance we need to take evasive action" It was purely coincidental. The sign may have helped reduce the number of injuries, but that's about it.
Now if they were hurt because of turbulence or something, well that is a different scenario.
PS We flew Air Canada (to Canada of all places) from Australia recently. We spent an inordinate amount of time with the seatbelt sign on. It really wasn't that rough. When you have the sign on too long, well people just *have* to get up and about for various reasons. It is going to happen.
Ever stop to think
Monty Python Airplane Pilots
"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." -- Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
The right to strike is a trivial derivative of our right to peaceably assemble, and the prohibition against involuntary servitude. Any law prohibiting strikes is unconstitutional.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
No other object as been misidentified as a flying saucer more often than the planet Venus. Your scientists have yet to discover how neural networks create self-consciousness, let alone how the human brain processes two-dimensional retinal images into the three-dimensional phenomenon known as perception. Yet you somehow brazenly declare seeing is believing?
You are telling me we give these guys permissions to nap in their seats while operating an aircraft?
WTF? When is it ever ok to fall asleep on the job?, less hours, shifts with the co pilot or something...
I do not understand the story being what it is, if they are allowed 45 minutes, 46 minutes makes it a fine for them?
Who keeps count....is there a stop watch somewhere, or hidden cameras?
Pilots have mistaken Venus for a UFO many times. Some have even mistaken the MOON for a UFO (either in clouds or while drunk).
I can see how one could mistake Venus for the landing lights of an aircraft several miles away, but how long would it take to realize that it WASN'T MOVING?
You mean Urectum?
Agreed. That's what I was thinking when I read this article: two planes, out over the atlantic, passing directly over/under each other with a thousand feet to spare, WHY?
Not a pilot here, but I would assume that over the atlantic there is more than enough room for planes to be offset both horizontally and vertically. Seems like in that airspace there is no reason to allow one unforeseen maneuver put people so close to a collision.
Looks like he picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue!
Why?
GPS lays out the most direct route. That route is processed through very expensive software that predicts the most optimum flightpath accounting for winds, temperatures and the optimum speeds for the airframe and engines. Airframes and engines tending to be very similar, and the winds being the same for everyone, and everyone wants to depart at 6pm (right after their last meeting), and arrive ASAP, planes tend to get bunched up.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
the only thing that was wrong here is that the passengers weren't wearing a seatbelt when they were told to be wearing one.
there is absolutely nothing wrong with an experienced pilot choosing to take a sudden action to a perceived immediate threat. the entire point is to not think it through, because there may not be enough time.
to suddenly drop the aircraft by 400 feet, with thousands of feet to go isn't dangerous (functioning aircraft presumed). It's even within normal altitudes bands.
I don't think anyone would have preferred no action taken to a perceived threat.
so, no seatbelt, no safety. big surprise. I hope those were mostly u.s. and zurich passengers, I don't want to believe that my fellow canadians would avoid wearing seatbelts just for fun.
All I'm saying is that if the gps, or whatever is guiding the plane is smart enough to offset the planes in altitude, coils it not also offset them laterally by a few thousand feet
While I "feel" the same way, I doubt that holds water in any court of law. Are you aware of any case law that would have set that precedent?
Just another day in Paradise
The injuries were self-inflicted. That "put your seat belt on, NOW" warning sign which is visible from every passenger seat, is installed, wired up and tested to communicate the message that you should, doh!, put your seat belt on, NOW. Not in ten minutes ; not when you feel it convenient ; not if your horoscope says beware of seagull shit. It means, approximately, "put your seat belt on, NOW."
Most of the time when I fly (I've had my flight to work bumped three times this week already), then not wearing the seatbelt is an unemployment offence (the flight would have to be turned round and landed as soon as possible). As is listening to an MP3 player (you might miss announcements from the pilots), reading an e-book, having a phone in your pocket (as opposed to hold-baggage).
Until you grow wings and feathers, flying is fucking dangerous, and should be treated with due respect.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
Venus does look really bright in the evening.
Lufthansa has it.
At least on the A380.
There the camera is mounted on top of the tail, so you also get to see the whole airplane, not just the front view. Quite awesome.
I was simply making the point that they are illegal. Laws aren't always Constitutional, but they are still technically laws, even if they aren't (or shouldn't be) enforceable.
The seatbelt sign is irrelevant. If you are sitting, the belt should be on. Period. That not only are you sitting without your belt, but you are also doing so when the "fasten seatbelts" sign is illuminated just proves you a moron.
Learn to love Alaska
Just for fun:
Distance from Earth to Venus at closest point: About 38,000,000km
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_distance_from_Venus_to_earth
Cruising Speed of a Boeing 767: 858 km/h
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_767
38 Million km / 858km/h = 44290 h
44290 h / 24 = 1845d
1845d / 365 = 5 years.
So it would take a Boeing 767 cruising at 858 km/h for just over 5 years to reach Venus.
Which I have to tell you is a lot quicker than I thought it would be, so maybe my math is wrong. Though I am also not taking into consideration gravity, or lack of air, etc...