Sleepy Air Canada pilot thought Venus was a plane

[fatmal]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/16/us-aircanada-incident-idUSBRE83F10120120416

 

Well, I get grumpy and clumsy when woken up from a nap too!

 

Mal.

 

 

[pylon500]

Interesting to see that they are allowed to sleep for 40 minutes.....?

 

"This is your Captain snoring, ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ"

 

Yeah, I know it was the FO..

 

 

[facthunter]

Having a nap......It's been going on unofficialy for years and is now acknowledged as necessary. It's not difficult to feel that Mars is aircraft lights at times, either, but I don't know about Venus. It's not the right colour. Nev

 

 

[rick-p]

He might have been like Lloyd Bridges in Flying High, he just chose a bad day to stop sniffing glue!

 

 

[dutchroll]

In general airline-talk it's called "controlled rest" and many airline SOPs allow it on two-pilot crews as part of their "fatigue risk management" programs.

 

Now to translate that into laypersons' terminology (from personal experience): "Come hell or high water we are going to continue to make you fly ridiculous and fatiguing back-of-clock long distance flying patterns but we need to be perceived as being really caring about our pilot fatigue levels so we're going to institute a program which doesn't really achieve much fatigue reduction but sounds pretty cool to the regulators and will keep them off our backs until someone does something bad, which we'll worry about whenever the time comes".

 

In practice it is fraught with complications and often doesn't achieve what it is theoretically supposed to. Cynical I know, but unfortunately the way of the world.

 

 

[nomadpete]

According to my (non flight) employer's fatigue management procedures, a 'nap' of less than 2hrs is insufficient to reset your fatigue clock. This is because if you don't actually spend time in the deep sleep zone, you don't get quality rest. So the quoted Canada Air policy just makes the PO feel a little better when he wakes up, without improving his decision making abilities. A false sense of security.

 

 

[pj8768]

Have dabbled in sleep physiology.

 

Two things that drive sleep-

 

1. Circadian rhythm, or body clock. This is stuffed for international pilots as they constantly traverse time zones aka constant jetlag. Meant to be awake when timed to be asleep a few time zones back - circadian rhythm dips normally around 3-4am (the "wall" for those that have done night shift) and 3-4pm for those that follow a standard 24h waking day. Italians smartly deal with this with the afternoon siesta.

 

2. Sleep debt- the longer the time spent awake, the greater the drive to sleep. This is best paid off with a stage of sleep known as slow wave - brain electrical activity greatly slows down.

 

Concept of the power nap- no longer than 20mins or so. Refreshing, and brain wave activity does not slow down too much, so you can still function afterwards.

 

If nap for too long, more likely to enter slow wave sleep. Sleep inertia results on waking. Brain waves at 1 Hz take a while to exceed the 14Hzplus of wakefulness; bit like trying to start a cold 1970s engine on a frosty morning. Most will have experienced and witnessed inertia in action - phone call at 2am that you only vaguely recall, or not at all, the kid who can't be soothed after a night terror, feeling groggy after a 1 hour nap on the weekend. Takes up to 15 mins to get back up to speed. We function best if we wake from rapid eye movement sleep, called active sleep is infants, as the electrical activity is similar to wakefulness. First REM period occurs after 90mins sleep, and cycles every 90mins or so.

 

The mining industry is up to speed with this stuff, as there's money at stake. Much more valuable than safety apparently.

 

 

[Virago]

Sometimes I wake up grumpy ... other times I just let her sleep!

 

 

[Wayne T Mathews]

It's a long time since I read about it, but I seem to recall Dick Rutan, whilst flying "The Voyager" around the world, mistook Venus for what he thought was a fighter's gun light. And he put that down to sleep deprivation too.

 

 

[rick-p]

Sometimes I wake up grumpy ... other times I just let her sleep!

Snow White had a similar problem, she usually woke up feeling grumpy!

 

 

[Guest davidh10]

I reckon all this "power nap" stuff is BS. Back in the days when I did shift work, I always felt worse after a "nap" of only a couple of hours or less and could never sleep the first or last night of a night shift series, so was awake for 24 hours. Even then I usually only slept 3 hours after a night shift, as I had a young family.

 

I can testify, there's nothing like a proper nights sleep (of at least 6 hours) to recuperate.

 

 

[Gnarly Gnu]

20 - 30 minutes max is a power nap and will invigorate for quite a while, a couple of hours will put you into deep sleep and thus hit you hard when you try to wake.

 

 

[facthunter]

Probably because it was better than feeling dopey, rick-p. How are you keeping? Nev

 

 

[rick-p]

Probably because it was better than feeling dopey, rick-p. How are you keeping? Nev

Not bad thanks Nev. Still trying to make up my mind if I really want to continue having to wake up every morning and head off to solve other peoples problems or just get out of it all and work solely on taking some time out for myself and family which would include some serious flying in other countries.

 

I think that the time has come to relax and enjoy what's ahead for all of us eventually.

 

Take care and thanks for asking.

 

Rick

 

 

[flying dog]

I just love the article, or at least this part:

 

The incident occurred at night on board a Boeing 767 twin engine passenger plane

 

And what other option is there?

 

1,3,4,5?!

 

It is kind of redundant saying it is a 767 TWIN engine.

 

Ah, gotta love the yanks.

 

 

[facthunter]

I suppose not everyone knows the 76 is a twin. At least they didn't say it was something else. Nev

 

 

[flying dog]

Yeah, but how important is that part of the information?

 

It was a 767 and there was this confusion about the Co-Pilot seeing Venus and mistaking it for another plane.

 

The "fact" that a 767 has two engines is IRRELEVANT.

 

 

[rick-p]

Yeah, but how important is that part of the information?It was a 767 and there was this confusion about the Co-Pilot seeing Venus and mistaking it for another plane.

 

The "fact" that a 767 has two engines is IRRELEVANT.

Tell that to those on board when one of the engines stop, relevancy doesn't then come into it!

 

Sorry I just couldn't resist that.