Both Mesa GO! pilots fall asleep during flight

[PBRstreetgang]

Jeesh,
Common guys, the Captain was getting his hair gel from his backpack and applying it, everyone knows that if you gel you cant put your headset back on right away, it messes up the doo! The F/O was on the Ipod, rocking to a Debbie Gibson jam.
There it is! Who needs the NTSB? F/I to the rescue!
PBR

 

[Headfake14]

maybe they had one helluva layover the night before

 

[Limeyflyer]

Jeesh,
Common guys, the Captain was getting his hair gel from his backpack and applying it, everyone knows that if you gel you cant put your headset back on right away, it messes up the doo! The F/O was on the Ipod, rocking to a Debbie Gibson jam.
There it is! Who needs the NTSB? F/I to the rescue!
PBR

I always get a laugh from the hair gel, backpack iPod posts!!! Good one

 

[MALSR]

If these guys would've read the "Captains that say I'm laid back thread" they would know that a good pre brief includes saying "if I wake up don't let me catch you sleeping." I guess that would require literacy though.

 

[Soverytired]

As the resident "Mesa apologist", I feel I must point out a few things:

• 15 nm off course in a jet traveling 6-7 miles a minute, while not exactly professional, isn't very far off course.
• 15 miles "out to sea" [GASP!] - - I think anyone who's flown in JFK, IAD, ATL, PHL, etc. would consider 15 miles an insanely short downwind. 15 miles "out to sea" is nothing . . . especially when your entire flight was just conducted . . . "Out to Sea".
• And they were "lost com" for 25 minutes? Again not professional, but it happens all the time; equipment, ATC failed-handoffs, crew dialing in the wrong freq, etc. Big deal.

No passenger in the back could possibly tell "there's something wrong with this flight path"; even if he did, wouldn't the prudent thing be to ask the flight attendant? This sentence is MORONIC . . . why would the press even include this, unless the flight path truly was unusual (LIKE, OH, INVERTED FLIGHT MAYBE?)

Like ALL aviation stories reported by the press, this story contains 1% fact and 99% twisted, "sexed-up" hyperbole and conjecture. I know MAG is the favorite whipping boy here . . . just remember, YOU could someday wake up and find YOUR flight in the newspaper being grossly mis-reported . . . .

Lost com and a bit of navigational carelessness most likely . . .

Asleep for a 9am flight? Hardly.

(However, I will plead the fifth on what I "heard" routinely happened on the 12am-2:30 am flights out of LAS when I was at MAG. Thank god, I surrendered by badge and my board a long time ago)

 

[Soverytired]

I ADD ONE MORE THING BEFORE SHUTTING MY PIE HOLE:

Mesa is ALPA. If you're on this board, YOU'RE probably ALPA. (well, unless you're Skywest - - - it's all good).

You SHOULD start saying why this is a textbook example for why ALPA's rest guidelines should become regulatory. It's one of the few things that ALPA has championed that I'm passionately in favor of.

If you've never been fighting to stay awake while your co-pilot is already out like a light, then you haven't been doing this very long. Unless you're in a high-density traffic area or mico-environment like Hawaii, you probably won't get caught, but that doesn't make it safe.

Rest and duty time rules, as currently set up, are a disaster waiting to happen.

 

[topdawg]

What about 21,000' passing hilo? Still common?

 

[Soverytired]

What about 21,000' passing hilo? Still common?

Beats me. I don't fly Hawaii.

What's more common:

"Local reporter completely screws up an aviation-related story"

-or-

"Pilots fall asleep and fly past destination."



Either is possible. One is far, far, FAR more likely.

Unless you were in the cockpit, you don't have the facts, neither does the press, and there are literally dozens of other things that might have been taking place.

I'm embarrassed that any pilot would take an aviation-related story reported by the nightly news at face value.

 

[RJP]

JO always manages to get publicity. Good or bad.

 

[T-prop]

JO always manages to get publicity. Good or bad.

I much prefer the bad.