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Two pilots fall asleep mid-flight with more than 150 on board 36,000 feet in the air
Two pilots of an Indonesian airline have come under fire after an incident report revealed they both fell asleep during a January flight with more than 150 people on board. The pilots were unreachable for roughly half an hour, waking to find that the plane had veered off course, the report said.
The incident occurred on a roundtrip Batik Air Indonesia flight between Halu Oleo Airport in Kendari and Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in Jakarta on January 25. During preparation for the first leg of the flight from Jakarta to Kendari, the second-in-command pilot – a 28-year-old with roughly 1,600 hours of flying time – told the pilot in command that he did not have proper rest, according to a report by Indonesia’s National Transportation Safety Committee. The commanding pilot, a 32-year-old with roughly 6,300 hours of flying time, allowed the secondary to rest during that leg of the trip for about half an hour.
On the flight back to Jakarta, which had 153 passengers and four flight attendants on board, the commanding pilot asked the secondary – who napped during the first leg – if he could take a turn to rest, which was granted. A little while later, the pilot woke up and asked the other pilot if they wanted to nap, which they declined.
About 20 minutes later, the incident report states the second pilot “inadvertently fell asleep” as they were roughly 36,000 feet in the air.
Air traffic controllers and other pilots attempted to get in contact with the napping pilots to no avail. Then 28 minutes after the last recorded transmission, the commanding pilot woke up and was immediately “aware that the aircraft was not in the correct flight path.”
“The PIC [pilot in command] then saw the SIC [second in command] was sleeping and woke him up,” the report says. “About the same time, the PIC responded to the call from another pilot and Jakarta ACC. The PIC advised the Jakarta ACC that BTK6723 experienced radio communication problem and currently the problem has been resolved. The flight then continued and landed at Jakarta uneventfully.”
Indonesia’s National Transportation Safety Committee
Investigators said nobody was injured and the aircraft was not damaged.
While the unnamed primary pilot on the flights had a rest period of 35 hours prior to the incident that involved exercise, visiting family and exercise, the secondary pilot on the flights, who was not named in the report, had 53 hours of rest time.
According to the report, the secondary pilot is also a new father with month-old twins who, two days before the flight, moved houses. He told investigators that the day before the flight, he “had to wake up several times” to help care for his children and that he “felt his sleep quality had degraded” in the process.
Batik Air said Saturday that the two pilots have been suspended, according to AFP.
The Safety Board has recommended measures to prevent such incidents from happening again. One of those recommendations is further development of Batik Air Indonesia’s personal checklist for pilots, which is meant for pilots to check themselves for illness, impairing medications, stress, alcohol, fatigue and their emotional state before flying.
“The absence of detailed guidance and procedure might have made pilots unable to assess their physical and mental condition properly,” the incident report says. “Therefore, KNKT recommends Batik Air Indonesia to develop detailed guidance and procedure for ensuring that the IM SAFE personal checklist can be used to assess pilot physical and mental condition properly.”
The cockpit of the plane is also supposed to be checked every half-hour, but the investigation found that there was an “absence of detailed procedures” that “might have made the cockpit check policy unable to be implemented properly.”
The airline said it “operates with adequate rest policy,” according to AFP, and that it is “committed to implement all safety recommendations.”
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If you or a co-worker is extroverted, personable and highly endowed with other soft skills but low on technical experience, you could be what is known as a “personality hire.”
These employees are often charismatic and have stellar interpersonal skills, which can go a long way in the workplace. Indeed, so-called personality hires serve a valuable purpose: They boost morale, cheer on coworkers, and can seal deals with clients.
And hiring managers are looking for people to champion corporate culture at a time when only one-third of U.S. employees say they are engaged at work, and nearly half of workers say they are stressed, according to Gallup’s annual report on the state of the workplace.
“Personality hires refer to employees that were hired for their personality. Think about their charisma and their ability to cheer the team on,” said Vicki Salemi, career expert for Monster. “If it were baseball, they’d be on the top step of the dugout cheering on the team. They are hired for their approach to work and their attitude.”
Almost half of workers — 48% — consider themselves a personality hire, according to a recent survey from career site Monster. Of those, 85% say they bring with them the ability to strengthen relationships with clients, customers and coworkers. Another 71% said they improve work culture, and 70% said they lighten the mood and boost morale. More than half say they exhibit enthusiasm for company sponsored events like happy hours.
Daniel Bennett, a 28-year-old founder of a creative agency, DX Creative, told CBS MoneyWatch he believes he was a personality hire in a former role at an advertising agency.
“You get hired based on if people like you or not,” he told CBS MoneyWatch. “I got my job with zero experience, and I attribute my beating out other candidates to making interviewers laugh and have a good time with me, instead of being stoic and telling them what they wanted to hear.”
“The right cultural fit”
There’s a relative consensus, too, among both personality hires and traditional employees that the former’s most valuable attribute is their ability to enhance relationships with clients and co-workers.
“They are the person on the team who can get along with anyone, especially if a relationship is sour. They can repair it and turn it into positive one,” Salemi said.
Of course, possessing soft skills or technical skills doesn’t have to be mutually exclusive. “The sweet spot is a candidate who has both. They have the technical skills to do the job and they are the right cultural fit,” Salemi said.
“It is a balance. Imagine going to the office and no one has a personality, and you’re not having fun at all. That’s an extremely hard environment to be successful in,” Bennett, the founder of the creative agency said.
He added that personality hires are far from bad at their jobs.
“Just because you’re a personality hire doesn’t mean you’re bad at your job; it just means your personality got you the extra oomph to get it,” he said.
Can build resentment
On the flip side, workers who fall under the traditional hire category can sometimes be resentful when a colleague they deem inexperienced or simply too chatty in the office is rewarded for their likability.
About four in 10 workers say they believe personality hires may receive opportunities and recognition they’re not deserving of, because their personality is valued more than hard work or the technical ability to do the job, according to the Monster survey.
“Someone who is more of an introvert may still be positive about the work environment and have high morale, but not be as extroverted as a colleague, and might be passed over,” Salemi said. “They’d say, ‘I bring just as much if not more to the table, and here is this personality hire who is advancing,’ but not for what they consider to be actual work.”
But in the view of some, including personality hires themselves, chatting with colleagues in the hallway or at the water cooler is an integral part of the job, and does drive real value for companies.
In a video on social media app TikTok, comedic actor Vienna Ayla pokes fun at personality hires while also highlighting their merits.
“So this job calls for five years of experience and expertise in Excel,” Ayla said of a fictitious role she’s in. “I had no experience and thought that Excel, was for, like, astronauts or something. But you know what I did have? A can-do attitude, and I think they really saw that.”
Ayla also said that the character she was playing had been insulated from numerous rounds of layoffs.
“There are rumors about some crazy layoffs coming. Am I nervous?” she said. “No. I’ve survived eight rounds of layoffs.”