WOW, imagine that.
DENVER -- A commercial pilot and his first
officer fell asleep while approaching Denver International Airport in
an A319 Airbus jet, going twice the speed as allowed, according to a federal safety Web site.The
incident, which occurred on March 4, 2004, was one of several incidents
that was brought out during a congressional hearing on airline safety
in Washington this week.Rep. Bart Gordon , D-Tenn., wanted to know why this information was available on a public Web site where pilots anonymously report the incidents themselves, while NASA wasn't willing to release it as part of a larger survey.
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NASA
had initially refused to release its National Aviation Operations
Monitoring Service survey, saying it could make the public
unnecessarily afraid to fly.In the report filed by the pilot,
who was not identified, he said he was flying a red-eye, overnight
flight from Denver to Baltimore, and after he landed at Baltimore, he
sat on the ground for one hour before he flew back to Denver."No
rest. Just straight seven hours and 55 minute-flight to Baltimore and
back. On this particular day in March 2004, after two previous
red-eyes, this being the third red-eye in a row, the last 45 minutes of
the flight, I fell asleep and so did the first officer," the pilot
wrote."Missed all the calls from Air Traffic Control to meet
crossing restrictions (where pilots have to be at a certain altitude at
a certain location) at the DANDD intersection (the intersection in the
sky) in the southeast corridor to Denver. The crossing restriction to
be at DANDD was to be at flight level 19,000 and 250 knots. Instead we
crossed DANDD at 35,000 feet at Mach .82 (approximately 590 mph)," the
pilot continued.That means that the aircraft was speeding towards DIA's crowded airspace with no one awake at the wheel."I
woke up, why I don't know, and heard frantic calls from Air Traffic
Control approximately 5 nautical miles inside DANDD (about 5 miles past
DANND)," the pilot said."I answered Air Traffic Control and
abided by all instructions to get down. Woke first officer up, started
down to flight level 22,000 feet as instructed ... Landed in Denver
with no further incidents," the pilot wrote.The pilot attributed the incident to "pilot fatigue and hopefully, (the) company is in process of changing these trip pairings."The airline was not identified, but only United and Frontier fly Airbus A319s out of DIA.A
United spokeswoman said the airline had no report of such an incident
and the airline did not have a "red eye" flight between Baltimore and
Denver.A Frontier spokesman said his airline did have a "red
eye" flight between Baltimore and Denver but told the Rocky Mountain
News that but the company could not find a report of the alleged
incident on the date mentioned.The report was filed in NASA's
Aviation Safety Reporting System, a public self-reporting site known as
ASRA. The site is designed to improve flight safety by allowing
anonymous reports to be made.After the Washington hearing, NASA
administrator Michael Griffin told lawmakers that he could release
survey information by the end of the year, although certain identifying
information would have to be deleted to prevent lawsuits.stopindex