Здесь довольно подробно о капитане DHC-8.И это они ещё не летели, на посадке вообще бы сознание потеряли. Давайте объективно, они везли груз в пострадавший от землетрясения район. Надеюсь груз они не сами таскали. Чем занимались? Минимум час(а то и больше) у них был. Если Вы о рабочем времени, то это немного другое. Если норма 12часов, то это незначит, что на 13м часе кабина должна потерять сознание. А мы чуть что - "а может они устали".
The doomed plane had early that morning returned with a different crew from a mission taking relief workers to an area devastated by the earthquake, the coast guard official also said.
Thousands of rescue workers were scrambled to respond to the disaster.
Captain Genki Miyamoto, 39, and his crew were preparing to take the plane — one of four stationed at the coast guard base at Haneda — back to the earthquake zone loaded with food and water.
The aircraft arrived back at Haneda from its second mission at 2.30 a.m. and left the hanger of the base again at 4.45 p.m., the official said.
The collision occurred at 5.47 p.m., authorities said.
In normal times, the coast guard tends to fly mid-morning when runways are less busy, the official said, adding the airport was "very busy" on the day of the accident.
Miyamoto, the pilot, also had a busy schedule.
The day before, he had been on a 7-hour mission to Japan’s southernmost island Okinotori, where he had been surveying a Chinese vessel off its waters. He returned around 5 p.m., just after the earthquake struck.
At that point, his mission the next day was not scheduled, the official said.
Miyamoto suffered severe burns as a result of the crash and could not be reached for comment.
The official said he had been a captain for nearly five years and had clocked up 3,641 hours of flight time.
Coast Guard plane stopped on runway for 40 seconds before collision
The coast guard aircraft proceeded onto the runway although it did not gain permission from an air traffic controller, sources said.
www.japantimes.co.jp