joseephuss
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http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/sleep...oncoming-plane/story?id=16158107#.T5WT39n-lI4
Sleepy Pilot Mistakes Planet for Oncoming Plane, Sends Passenger Jet Into Dive
A sleepy pilot who mistook the planet Venus for an oncoming plane sent his Air Canada jet into a steep dive that bounced passengers off the ceiling, injuring 16, and nearly caused a collision with a real plane flying 1,000 feet lower.
Air Canada initially described the injuries to 14 passengers and two flight attendants as the result of "severe turbulence," but a report released this week by the Transportation Safety Board of Canada explains what really happened over the Atlantic Ocean on an overnight flight from Toronto to Zurich on Jan. 14, 2011.
According to the report, the plane's first officer had been sleeping, as is permitted by Air Canada on transatlantic flights, when he was awakened by the pilot's report of the plane's position.
The pilot indicated that a U.S. Air Force cargo plane was approaching the Air Canada 767-300 at an elevation about 1,000 feet below the passenger jet.
The "confused and disoriented" first officer, however, believed that the planet Venus was the approaching plane, and was coming right at the Air Canada jet. He forced the plane into a dive.
Passengers who were not wearing seatbelts, many of them asleep, were slammed into the ceiling and overhead bins.
Sleepy Pilot Mistakes Planet for Oncoming Plane, Sends Passenger Jet Into Dive
A sleepy pilot who mistook the planet Venus for an oncoming plane sent his Air Canada jet into a steep dive that bounced passengers off the ceiling, injuring 16, and nearly caused a collision with a real plane flying 1,000 feet lower.
Air Canada initially described the injuries to 14 passengers and two flight attendants as the result of "severe turbulence," but a report released this week by the Transportation Safety Board of Canada explains what really happened over the Atlantic Ocean on an overnight flight from Toronto to Zurich on Jan. 14, 2011.
According to the report, the plane's first officer had been sleeping, as is permitted by Air Canada on transatlantic flights, when he was awakened by the pilot's report of the plane's position.
The pilot indicated that a U.S. Air Force cargo plane was approaching the Air Canada 767-300 at an elevation about 1,000 feet below the passenger jet.
The "confused and disoriented" first officer, however, believed that the planet Venus was the approaching plane, and was coming right at the Air Canada jet. He forced the plane into a dive.
Passengers who were not wearing seatbelts, many of them asleep, were slammed into the ceiling and overhead bins.
