An Air India aircraft carrying 137 passengers and eight crew members from Phuket to Delhi had suddenly lost about 300 feet of altitude on August 4, injuring at least 24 people.
The pilot in command of an Air India flight from Phuket to Delhi that encountered a sudden loss of altitude last week was on medication for “sleep difficulty”, as per the airline’s internal flight safety report accessed by NDTV.
The pilot, Sudeep Vashistha, who has tested positive for marijuana in a drug test twice, said that the “sleep did not come easily” to him during the layover.
The aircraft, AI-2379, carrying 137 passengers and eight crew members, had suddenly lost about 300 feet of altitude while it was flying from Phuket to Delhi on August 4.
“I disclose, for completeness, that I had separately been experiencing sleep difficulty over a preceding period, related to personal circumstances, for which I had been prescribed medication by my family doctor,” Vashistha said in a flight safety statement.
“During the layover, I personally attempted rest; sleep did not come easily, and I judged that light activity such as walking would be constructive for sleep quality,” he said.
He also said the roster duties, which he said were legally within the prescribed rest limits, were scheduled in a way that “compressed available daytime rest, which is often below the minimum required for adequate recovery”.
For the first flight, the pilot had to report for duty at 12:10 AM, which meant preparations needed to begin well before 10 PM – and getting good sleep before that was difficult.
After landing, finishing post-flight duties and getting to the hotel in Phuket usually took 1.5 to 2 hours, which cut further into the time available to rest during the day – often leaving less than what’s needed to properly recover, he said.
For the second flight, Vashistha said he had to wake up at 3 AM IST.
The Incident Report accessed by NDTV indicates that he was not in his seat, with the co-pilot in command of the aircraft when the flight plummeted 300 feet over Odisha.
Sources indicate that he then went to the cabin to check up on injuries and reportedly told passengers not to film him or the aircraft.
