It's already enough that we have to worry about our flights arriving on time. Now, we have to worry about if our pilots can stay awake.
According to an article on MSNBC, two pilots fell asleep on a flight Baltimore and Denver. Sadly, one of the pilots only woke up because of "frantic" calls from air traffic controllers. The incident occured in March of 2004 and was made public by NASA's Aviation Safety Reporting System, which allows crew members to anonymously document incidents.
Frontier spokesman Joe Hodas told the newspaper the airline had a "red eye" flight on the schedule at the time but could not find a report of the incident.
Federal Aviation Administration officials did not immediately return a message left by The Associated Press after business hours.
Last 45 mins of flt (flight) I fell asleep and so did the FO (first officer)," according to the narrative in the report.
The captain noted they were approaching a point where they were to begin their descent into denver international airport about 60 miles southeast of there at 35,000 feet, much higher than required, and at Mach .82, or 608 mph, instead of a required slower speed.
"I woke up, why I don't know, and heard frantic calls from ATC … I answered ATC and abided by all instructions to get down. Woke FO (first officer) up."
He spiraled the jet down to a lower altitude as ordered, then landed "with no further incidents."
The pilot had been switched to three nights in a row of flying the overnight, eight-hour round trip.