The pilot at the controls of an Indian jet that crashed after leaving Dubai on May 22, killing 158 passengers, slept for more than half the flight, only waking when it was time to land the plane, an official investigation has found.
His snoring, at times, was so loud it was picked up by the in-flight recorders.
Zlatko Glusica, a Serbian pilot with more than 10,200 hours of flying experience, was disorientated as the Air India Express plane came into land as a result of “sleep inertia”, the Court of Inquiry report said.
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On the recorder, his Indian co-pilot HS Ahluwalia can be heard repeatedly warning him to abort the landing. The final words captured before the plane crashed were from one of the pilots: "Oh my God."
The Air India Express flight from Dubai to Mangalore in southern India overshot a hilltop runway, crashed and plunged over a cliff, killing 158 people instantly.
Many of the passengers were migrant workers returning from contracts in the Gulf.
Eight people survived the crash.
The six-member panel, which was appointed by the Indian government, examined data from the digital flight recorder and the voice recorder of the aircraft, recovered from the crash site.
According to the panel’s report, seen by Associated Press, Glusica reacted late and failed to follow many standard operating procedures during the landing.
The investigation team has now submitted its report to the country's civil aviation ministry, which will share the findings with the Indian parliament.
In June 2008, an Air India aircraft flying to Mumbai with 100 passengers missed its destination because the pilots were sleeping. When woken by Mumbai air traffic controllers, the plane was some 200 miles past the airport.
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