Maybe they should be flying a Mercedes

Andy Pasztor has an article in The Wall Street Journal about falling asleep:

Federal officials are working to sort out whether pilots of a Northwest Airlines flight dozed off or were simply distracted Wednesday night when they fell out of contact with air-traffic controllers for more than an hour and overshot their destination by 150 miles. The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating, among other things, whether the two pilots fell asleep at the controls. The pair told law-enforcement officials who interviewed them upon landing in Minneapolis and apparently told fellow pilots later that they had been engaged in a "heated discussion over airline policy and they lost situational awareness", according to the NTSB.
Whatever the reason, the plane may have flown out of range of one air-traffic-control center and failed to take steps to get back on course and resume radio contact with controllers, according to industry and government officials close to the situation.
During the 78-minute radio silence, controllers became so concerned about the fate of the 149 people aboard that they asked pilots of other aircraft in the vicinity to see if they could rouse the Northwest crew, according to industry and government officials. When that failed, the Federal Aviation Administration and military official began to consider having fighter jets scrambled to intercept the twin-jet Airbus A320, these officials said. When an aircraft fails to respond for such a long time, it is routine procedure to send fighters to try to determine the problem.
The incident, which pilots and safety experts consider a bizarre break from routine procedure, had the plane crossing various air-traffic-control zones and being passed to different groups of controllers without any verbal response. It comes as federal regulators, lawmakers, and airlines are focusing on the issue of pilot fatigue and debating possible changes to rules that spell out how long pilots can fly or be on duty in a 24-hour period.
Northwest Flight 188, which took off from San Diego and had been flying at an altitude of 37,000 feet when contact was lost, eventually circled back and landed safely in Minneapolis without injuries. For a normal approach, the plane should have started slowing and descending as much as thirty minutes prior to touchdown.
Once on the ground at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, the pilots were interviewed by agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and airport police. The plane's cockpit voice recorder, which can store up to two hours of data, will be analyzed by federal investigators.
Northwest's parent company, Delta Air Lines, said, "We are cooperating with the FAA and NTSB in their investigation as well as conducting our own internal investigation. The pilots have been relieved from active flying pending the completion of these investigations."
Investigators also plan to review data from the plane's digital flight-data recorder, which could offer clues as to what transpired during the period when airport controllers lost contact with the plane. Initially, investigators focused on the possibility that both pilots might have fallen asleep in midflight, but later indications were that the crew may have lost track of where they were and then failed to swiftly notify controllers about their lapse.
Pilot fatigue has long been regarded as one of the most serious safety issues confronting commercial aviation. The FAA, airlines and pilot unions now all agree U.S. rules dealing with pilot fatigue are outdated and don't reflect the latest science.
The FAA wants to replace the one-size-fits-all rules on pilot workdays with a system that takes into consideration things such as the time of day pilots work, the number of takeoffs they perform and the internal body clocks of crew members.
Though the practice of nodding off midflight in the cockpit is prohibited by the FAA, U.S. airlines and pilot unions say there is a growing body of research supporting the notion that so-called controlled napping by part of a cockpit crew can enhance safety by making crews more alert during critical, often hectic descents and landings.
For years, several foreign airlines have endorsed the idea of having one pilot at a time briefly doze off during routine cruise portions of certain flights.
Wednesday night's incident is the second time in less than a week that a cockpit crew was involved in a high-profile safety mix-up. On Monday, a long-range Delta Boeing 767 en route from Brazil to Atlanta's Hartsfield International Airport landed on a taxiway, rather than the parallel runway. There were no injuries to any of the 182 passengers or 11 crew members.
The NTSB is investigating whether pilot fatigue or distraction was an important factor in that incident. The Delta crew had flown all night and was landing in darkness. The approach lights for the runway weren't turned on. But the lights on the runway, which are different in color and pattern from those on the taxiway, were illuminated, according to the safety board.

Rico says the new Mercedes-Benz commercials tout the car's ability to detect a driver falling asleep; maybe the airlines should consider getting that technology...