A British Airways pilot left his co-worker alone in the cockpit when he got sick and had to run to the toilet as the New York flight was approaching the airport at Heathrow.
The Captain of the Boeing 747 had to follow emergency safety procedures after his co-pilot left so that he could land the plane. It is believed that the pilot suffered food poisoning. He got sick in the bathroom next to the cockpit, Daily Mail.
"This incident happened in March 2012, when the Captain followed the correct safety procedures and landed the plane normally at Heathrow after his co-pilot fell ill towards the end of the overnight flight from New York," BA told the Daily Mail.
British Airline Pilots Association (BALPA) says the pilot did an exemplary job of safely landing the plane without his co-pilot.
"Events like these are fortunately rare, but they show the professionalism and skill of pilots when they do," BALPA told the Mail. "The workload for a single pilot landing an aircraft on his or her own is tremendous and he appears to have done an exemplary job in this case. Making every flight a safe flight is the aim of BALPA and our members and we will always put the safety of the travelling public first."
This incident comes a week after BALPA released a poll of 500 pilots showing that six out of 10 have fallen asleep in the cockpit. Of those, one in three said they woke up and found that the other pilot was asleep as well. One in six were in the cockpit when both pilots were asleep. On Saturday, a pilot admitted that he and his co-pilot fell asleep while flying a freight plane and only woke up a few minutes before they were set to land.
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
