Luckily nothing bad happened. I always feel uncomfortable when I’m on duty with little or no sleep before, but in medicine you at least can’t crash the hospital when falling asleep…
Night IFR on autopilot in a twin prop can be very soporific. If I am on my own on the flight deck, I make myself do duties (get weather, plan fuel, brief approaches etc) all the time just for this reason.
Today, for example, I didn’t sleep well, had fog, then an AOG before departure, so was rushing around a bit, took off from Biggin, was given a couple of vectors to the southwest, and then basically pointed in a straight line to the IF at destination, two hours away. There was almost nothing on the radio, my wife was dozing or reading a book in the back there was nothing at all to do. I very consciously busied myself the whole way over, to avoid losing focus or even going to sleep.
I feel sorry for the guy.
How far was the direct to IF
I am sure it’s happened many times. If I fell asleep enroute I would, upon waking up, fake a radio problem by calling up for a radio check 
Lost comms are fairly common anyway, in GA, due to a unit forgetting about you, and probably equally so with airliners which travel that much faster. And not many would fall asleep near the destination because one is normally busy as hell. I guess he fell asleep well before
This was a PA31 i.e. “just a little plane” In a way it is encouraging that the Guardian (or whoever) had to dig so far (Australia) to find an example.
I’ve been massively tired on some flights – Have you ever fallen asleep while flying
How far was the direct to IF
Roughly Mid-Channel FIR to Nantes.
Hahahaha, I empathise with Timothy. I had a 545nm Direct the other day; the only thing that kept me awake was the lack of a serviceable autopilot.
It is a difficult issue. On the long North Atlantic legs there is no radio work between reporting points which can be an hour away.
If tired and doing an overnighter solo you need to work very hard to avoid sleep.
JasonC wrote:
If tired and doing an overnighter solo you need to work very hard to avoid sleep.
It depends how much you trust yourself? (can’t convince passengers who don’t trust me to have a nap while I drive the car, airplane…)
Ibra wrote:
It depends how much you trust yourself?
Well if you do it you obv trust yourself.
I heard somewhere that talking to others helps staying awake. I never had it happen to me but my GA flights are not very long either. If it did I would inform ATC about it and land sooner.
In FAA land 8000 is considered high altitude at night, also a factor.
