The Case of the Sleeping Pilots: Here are a few more findings shared by our readers
A few weeks back, news outlets reported that an Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 flight ran into trouble when both pilots fell asleep and overshot the runway. While passengers banging on the cockpit door and urgent messages from the control tower didn’t help, fortunately an alarm was triggered that corrected the aircraft’s descent, enabling the plane to land safely. Presumably, an investigation will be launched by the airline to determine the cause for the pilots’ flighty fatigue, but last week, we presented our own theories. Here are a few more findings shared by our readers.
All your theories are wrong.
There is only one possible reason the pilots both fell asleep. They took Zaidy Himmelstein’s sleep (sea sickness) pills! They were still asleep when the plane took off on its next route to Damascus, Syria. Duh!
The pilot indeed was desperate to get enough zzz’s the night before. But what should he have done? Daf yomi was punkt in middle of the third perek of Kesubos, and the sugya was kom lei b’deraba minei. Just when he thought he had pshat, the copilot pointed out that it didn’t klap with the Rambam. After horeving the whole night without having found a pshat, they changed into uniform and started jockeying down the runway. Just as the plane started moving, they suddenly figured out that their hanachah was b’etzem wrong. With the Rambam meyushav, sleep overtook them.
The day of that fateful flight, the pilots began their usual ritual of sitting down to steaming Nespressos, a tradition they claimed left them energized and alert for the flight ahead. But something went wrong this time.
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