A flight captain was terminated by Ita Airways because he is said to have violated some regulations on flight AZ 30 on April 2022, 609. Among other things, radio messages from the Marseille flight control center were not answered for ten minutes. French Air Force fighter jets have already been sent into the air, but have been ordered back to their base.

Air traffic controllers received no response from the pilot of the Airbus A330-200 with registration EI-EJP for around ten minutes. The long-haul aircraft, operated by Ita Airways, was en route from New York JFK to Rome-Fiumicino. At the time of the incident you were flying in French airspace. After the radio message was answered with a ten-minute delay, air traffic control decided to call the fighter jets, which had already been sent into the air, back to their base. There was therefore no interception maneuver.

For the flight captain, however, the incident had consequences because an official investigation was initiated. Ita Airways also took a close look at the internal processes. Italian media quoted a spokesman for the carrier as saying that the captain had behaved in ways that were incompatible with aviation rules and the internal code. Furthermore, in the course of questioning, it turned out that the master's account differed greatly from the facts that could be determined, for example, with the help of the flight recorders. For example, he is said to have claimed that there was a problem with the radio.

According to Ita Airways, however, both the first officer and the captain fell asleep for a short time and did not even hear the radio message from Marseille. The technical examination of the EI-EJP is said to have shown that all communication systems were in order. The employer accuses the captain of being dishonest and unreasonable in the course of investigating the incident. This breach of trust is said to have been decisive for the termination.

The carrier emphasizes that the long-haul aircraft was on autopilot at the time of the incident and therefore posed no danger to the passengers. But were the two pilots overtired? Ita Airways didn't even want to go into that. European pilots' unions have warned for many years that fatigue is an issue that many airlines downplay for economic reasons. Dangerous situations have repeatedly arisen, which can be traced back to overtired pilots. In the United States of America there were always crashes, which is why the regulations there - especially in the regional flight area - were gradually tightened.