Reported by CNN this morning!!!!!

Robert Perkins wrote in message I think the pilot's mistake was not so
much that he was asleep while another had the controls; the safety problem
with that is not as
critical in a 2-crew airplane at cruise.

Walker's flies a few times per week, one hour out and one hour back, always
during the day with the crew being home every night. It's not a high demand
job. Doing back-to-back red-eyes out to LAX can tax one with fatigue, but
not doing a cake job like Walker's. Besides, a professional pilot makes sure
he is well rested before taking a flight, or he calls out sick.

The FO is certainly capable of flying the plane. However, radar services are
NOT available for much of their route and there is a lot of traffic crossing
that route. An extra set of eyes scanning for traffic is a valuable safety
asset.

Rather, it was that he let his passengers get unsettled enough to
document it. Never scare the pax, right? They pay the bills for the
flight, after all...

They weren't unsettled. They were giggling. They don't pay the bills either.
The island is huge tax write-off for a big corporation. Those passengers
will likely be back. The one on CNN said as much.

So while falling asleep wasn't bad for flight safety so much, it was
*very* bad for business. Wasn't he sacked?

Wrong, wrong, and wrong again. He resigned.