KNKT Calls Batik Air Plane Had Time To Leave The Imbas Pilot's Path To Sleep

Batik Air (Photo: Antara)

JAKARTA - The National Transportation Safety Committee (KNKT) released a preliminary report regarding the incident of the pilot and co-pilot of the Airbus A320 Batik Air airline on the Kendari-Jakarta route. Where, the pilot and co-pilot fell asleep for 28 minutes due to fatigue.

The incident caused the PK-LUV registration plane to leave the flight route and did not respond to the regional control center (ACC).

No one was injured in this incident, and there was no damage on the part of the plane, as stated in the preliminary report of the NTSC quoting Antara.

However, the NTSC still classifies the incident as a "serious" incident category.

In the KNKT chronology report, it was explained that initially the 32-year-old pilot (Pilot in Command/PIC) and 28-year-old co-pilot (Second in Command/SIC) operated the Airbus A320 aircraft carrying passengers from Jakarta to Kendari, with a round-trip route.

The flight was operated by two pilots and four flight attendants.

In the middle of a flight from Jakarta to Kendari, the pilot offered the co-pilot to sleep because he looked tired.

Then the copilot decides to sleep for 30 minutes, and the pilot takes over the temporary co-pilot's duties.

The plane managed to land safely in Kendari.

In the KNKT investigation, it was written that during the transit at Haluoleo Airport, Kendari, pilots and co-pilots took the time to eat instant noodles.

After lowering all passengers, the plane continued its flight back at 00:45 a.m. Universal Time Coordinated (UTC) to Jakarta with flight number BTK6723.

The total number of passengers on the plane to Jakarta was recorded at 153 people.

When the plane reached a cruising altitude of 36 thousand feet (cruising), the pilot and co-pilot removed the headset and the volume of the cockpit hardener was raised.

At that time the pilot asked the co-pilot for permission to rest, and the co-pilot took over the pilot's duties for a while.

Moments later, the pilot fell asleep with the still-maintained co-pilot taking over his duties.

After some time, the pilot woke up and offered the co-pilot if he wanted to rest, but the co-pilot refused.

The two pilots then had a non-duty conversation for about 30 seconds and then PIC (pilot) continued to sleep. SIC (copilot) found out that PIC was sleeping and continued its duties both as a pilot and as a co-pilot, "explained the preliminary report signed by Soerjanto Tjahjono.

During these flight seconds, the coordination between the ACC co-pilots in the Jakarta area should be established.

However, at 01:43:42 UTC when ACC Jakarta asked the flight crew how long the plane flew on its path, there was no response from the cockpit crew.

Kopilot turned out to have accidentally fallen asleep.

"At 01:43:42 UTC, SIC (copilot) read ACC Jakarta's instructions again. Moments later, SIC (copilot) then accidentally fell asleep," wrote the KNKT report.

ACC Makassar and ACC Jakarta provide air traffic control services by utilizing the surveillance system (radar service).

Then, or about 12 minutes after the last transmission, ACC Jakarta again tried to make contact with the plane, but still did not get a response.

Then a number of efforts were made to contact the pilot and co-pilot, including contacting other pilot aircraft to assist him, but there was no response from the BTK6723 aircraft.

After that, at 02:11 UTC or about 28 minutes since the last transmission, the pilot woke up and realized that the co-pilot was asleep and the plane was out of flight.

The pilot immediately woke up the co-pilot and responded to calls from the ACC and other aircraft pilots.

The plane was then directed back to the correct flight path, and managed to land at Soekarno-Hatta Airport safely.

As a result of the incident, the NTSC issued safety recommendations to anticipate the same thing in the future.

Guidelines for the operation of Batik Air Indonesia Volume A (OM-A) explained that pilots must have a personal inspection list, which includes the category of disturbances that will be experienced by pilots which include medical treatment, stress (stress), alcohol (alcoholic), fatigue (fatigue) and emotion (IM SAFE).

The IM SAFE acronym was made so that it can be easily remembered that you have not done flight tasks.

"The investigations carried out did not find any detailed guidelines or procedures from the IM SAFE personal checklist, such as assessment guidelines for each category of decrease in value," the report read.