Tired crew catch 40 winks, delay flight

MUMBAI: A British Airways (BA) flight from Delhi to London got delayed by 12 hours on Sunday because the pilot and crew did not have enough sleep.

Flight 142, which was supposed to take off with 225 passengers from the Indira Gandhi International Airport at 2.10am on Sunday, finally left at 3.20pm, after a 12-hour delay.

BA spokesperson in Delhi, Radhika Raikhy, said the flight captain and the crew decided they were not fit to fly because of sleep deprivation. “A noisy hotel was the cause,” Raikhy said.

The team of 20, including flight and cabin crew, was on a stopover flight from London which arrived in Delhi two days ago. As per rules, all pilots must follow flight duty time limitations. Generally, the rest time is double the flight time.

The flying time from Delhi to London is roughly 10 hours, so, the crew need a minimum of 20 hours of rest before starting off again.

In case of BA, it is mandatory that the flight and the cabin crew have at least about 12 hours of rest before they can fly again.

DNA has learnt that the crew were lodged at the InterContinental at Connaught Place. Sources squarely blamed the captain saying: “He was partying late into the night.”