A Lufthansa plane flew for about 10 minutes without a pilot when the co -pilot was incapacted while the captain was out of the cabin duration of a flight last February” According to the Ministry of Transportation of Spain and sustainable mobility.
The flight on February 17, 2024, from Frankfurt, Germany, to Seville, Spain, an Airbus A321 that transported 199 passengers and six crew members, was on the Iberian Peninsula when the captain left the roof to go to the bathroom. Shortly after, the 38 -year -old co -pilot “suffered a sudden and severe disability,” said a report from the Ministry of Transportation.
The report finally concluded that the plane “flew for about 10 minutes in the cruise phase with the committed autopilot but without additional supervision of any of the pilot.”
When the captain ended in the bathroom, he could not return to the cabin, according to the report. The cabin of the cabin can only be opened from the inside, so to re -enter, the captain would have to enter a code that would like the person inside the cabin to open for them.
The captain entered the code several times, but he still could not enter the flight deck. When a crew member tried to contact the intercom, there was no answer. Then, the captain used the emergency code, which would have unlocked the by after a brief delay to try to enter the flight deck, but before the delay expired, the co -pilot opened the interior to let it in.
The captain noticed that the co -pilot was “pale, sweating and moving strangely,” according to the report, so a crew member gave him first aid and a doctor traveling on the flight as a passenger. That doctor diagnosed the co -pilot with a possible heart condition, according to the report.
The incident research concluded that the incapacitation of the co -pilot was “the symptom of a neurological condition that had not detected the leg or by the affected person or in the previous aeronautical medical exams.”
The report found that the co -pilot lost consciousness so suddenly that he did not have time to warn other crew members.
Although the co -pilot was incapacitated, inadvertently it reached several switches in the cabin, including the increase in pressure on one of the pedals of the foot, according to the report. This caused a roll of 2 degrees and a change of heading of 5 degrees, which were set by the airplane autopilot, which remained all the time.
About two minutes elapsed since the moment the captain tried to return to the cabin when the door finally opened, according to the report.
The captain diverted the plane to the nearest airport, which was the Adolfo Suárez Madrid Barajas airport, where the flight landed safely 20 minutes later. The co -pilot did not return to the cabin for the rest of the flight.
The condition of the co -pilot would not have a leg found by founding medical exams unless it was actively experienced symptoms at that time or that would have previously experienced a topic, according to the report. The medical certificate of the co -pilot was suspended after the flight, and the report said: “This disease is disqualified to obtain or maintenance of medical aptitude to fly.”
Lufthansa did not respond immediately to the request for comments from CBS News.
Contributed to this report.
