Caught sleeping on the job: Indonesian pilots suspended after dozing off mid-flight

Two pilots have landed in hot water after they were caught sleeping on the job on a night commercial flight they were operating.

After they dozed off on a Batik Air flight on Jan 25, which carried 153 passengers and four crew members, the plane veered off course.

The pilots are now suspended while Indonesia's transport ministry carries out an investigation, according to a report by the National Transportation Safety Commission.

The report did not identify the pilots, only describing the captain as a 32-year-old Indonesian and his second-in-command as a 28-year-old Indonesian who felt his sleep quality had "degraded" after waking up several times to help his wife take care of his one-month-old twin babies.

About 30 minutes into the two-hour flight, which was on its way to Jakarta from Sulawesi, the captain asked his co-pilot for permission to rest. He then fell asleep and woke up just under an hour later.

He then asked the other pilot if he wanted to rest. When the latter declined, the captain dozed off again.

But the second pilot also "inadvertently fell asleep". During this time, the pilots failed to respond to traffic controllers and another plane which had tried contacting the flight for 28 minutes.

When the captain finally woke up, he realised the plane was not on the correct flight path.

"He then saw the second in command was sleeping and woke him up," the report said, adding that the captain steered the plane to the correct course and told flight controllers that there was a "radio communication problem". 

"The flight then continued and landed in Jakarta uneventfully. No one was injured in this occurrence and there was no damage to the aircraft," the report said.

In a statement to Indonesian news outlets, air transport director-general M. Kristi Endah Murni said on March 9 that the transport ministry will review the night-flight operations of Batik Air and other airlines.

The crew of the Batik Air flight have also been grounded according to the standard operational procedure while further investigation is ongoing, she added. 

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chingshijie@asiaone.com