A charter pilot accused of sleeping during a 55-minute flight resigned today after a videotape surfaced.
The Federal Aviation Administration said it is investigating the incident on a Walker’s International flight from the Bahamas to Fort Lauderdale, Fla., last Sunday, reported WPEC-TV in West Palm Beach, Fla.
 Passenger’s video of pilot (Photo: WPEC-TV, West Palm Beach, Fla.) |
The pilot’s name was not released.
The videotape, taken by passenger Chris Ballard, shows the captain with his eyes closed and apparently asleep while the co-pilot flew the plane.
Ballard said the co-pilot noticed him taping the pilot.
“He didn’t wake him up, so I wasn’t going to get up and go into their area and wake him up myself,” Ballard told CNN.
Bill Jones, Walker International’s general manager, said the pilot denies he was sleeping during the flight, with 15 passengers on board, but concluded the video and publicity “made a difficult situation,” the Associated Press reported.
Jones said the man had worked for his company for about a year. The co-pilot, he said, “reports that at no time was he aware that the other pilot was asleep,” according to the AP.
The manager also said interviews with about half of the passengers indicated the flight was uneventful and there were no signs a pilot was dozing.
He acknowledged, however, the video “looks very bad,” the AP said.
An FAA spokeswoman in Atlanta said she would not assume the pilot is guilty based on news reports.
“We have to do our own thorough investigation,” Kathleen Bergen told the AP.
She said possible sanctions range from a warning letter to a suspension or revocation of his pilot’s certificate.
Jones told the AP that particular flight required two pilots, and under FAA regulations both must be “alert and performing their flight-related duties.”
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