Life imitated art over Maine in mid-October when a first officer on a TUI Airways Boeing 787 was felled by suspected food poisoning. The aircraft, which was on a charter flight from Doncaster in the U.K. to Melbourne, Florida (used by some holiday charters as a cheaper alternative to Orlando), had only two pilots for the 8.5-hour trip so procedures demanded a diversion. The captain, with a flight attendant flying shotgun, headed for Bangor, Maine, with controllers so anxious to help one offered to read the captain the ATIS. He declined, having already dialed it in.
Years ago on a non stop B747-236 from London to Narita (Tokyo) an augmented crew, Captain and two First Officers, gave time in the crew rest bunks behind the flight deck for each pilot in turn to rest during the 10hr 30 min sector. Sadly, the Captain died while asleep in his bunk, over half way enroute. The two experienced First Officers called for medical help, provided by a passenger who was a medical doctor, and confirmed the death. The decision to continue was made as the alternate was to divert to a remote airfield in the the Soviet Union with 300+ unwilling passengers and crew. The flight continued to Tokyo where a safe arrival was made.
Illustrates why pilots are served different meals as SOP.
But when did the pax get to Melbourne?
Proper operation would be to fly a new crew over on a business jet?
(Pacific Western Airlines would fly parts and a technician to Resolute Bay from Edmonton when needed, a flight of a few hours.)
This is not news. I’ve been on 2 flights with food poisoning of a flight crew member. One was me, the Captain, fortunately we were close to final and we did not divert. The other we diverted into ORD (headed to Frankfurt) and they found another crew to continue as we went illegal and went back to DFW.
“From there, the poison goes to work on the central nervous system, causing severe muscle spasms, followed by the inevitable drooling. At this point the entire digestive system collapses, accompanied by uncontrollable flatulence until finally the poor bastard is reduced to a quivering, wasted, piece of jelly.”