Pilots May Have Napped On 45-Minute Hop

The FAA wants to know if the flight crew onboard a recent go! Airlines flight took a nap at 21,000 feet over Hawaii.

According to news reports, Flight 1002 from Honolulu to Hilo started off normally last Wednesday... but one passenger noticed something unusual onboard what was supposed to be a short, early-morning 45-minute interisland hop.

"When I noticed we weren't descending I told my wife, she was sitting on the left, I mentioned to her I think something is kind of weird with this flight pattern," passenger Derrick Lining told KGMB-9.

Sources tell the television station the plane stayed at 21,000 feet as it overflew Hilo, still on autopilot, and went off track 15 miles out to sea before the CRJ-200 turned back towards land.

FAA spokesman Ian Gregor says the incident was certainly unusual... and admits one likely scenario rises above others. "We are investigating whether the pilot and copilot of an interisland go! Airlines flight fell asleep while the plane was in the air between Honolulu and Hilo," said Gregor.

Airline analyst Peter Foreman says such incidents have happened before. In one widely-reported case, two commercial pilots apparently fell asleep on a March 2004 flight between Baltimore and Denver, with one pilot waking up to "frantic" calls from air traffic controllers warning them they were approaching the airport at twice the speed allowed. The event was reported by the captain on the flight on NASA's Aviation Safety Reporting System (ASRS), and made the rounds throughout the media last year.

But Foreman says the go! incident raises a number of new questions -- namely, why did the pilots fall asleep on such a short flight?

"For both pilots to fall asleep at 9 o'clock in the morning that seems pretty strange," he said. "Even if there was communications failure that jet should have started down for the destination and it didn't. So those pilots have a lot of explaining to do."

Mesa Air Group launched its go! Airlines service in Hawaii in 2006, with the intent of taking a big chunk out of the business of established players Hawaiian Airlines and Aloha Airlines. Offering cut-rate fares, the airline arguably succeeded in that mission... but at a high price.

In October 2007, a US Bankruptcy Court judge ruled Mesa illegally used confidential information obtained from Hawaiian in bankruptcy proceedings to launch go!... and ordered Mesa to cough up $80 million. That ruling contributed to an operating loss for Mesa of $62.2 million in the fourth quarter of 2007.

Mesa flies as Delta Connection, US Airways Express, United Express, go!, and Mesa Airlines. The airline recently made headlines for reported pilot staffing and morale issues, that representatives with the Air Line Pilots Association claim have reached critical levels and are negatively impacting Mesa operations.

In January, the union claimed over 500 pilots left Mesa last year alone, causing flight delays and cancellations.

FMI: www.mesa-air.com/go.asp