I find it very easy to relax on a Hawaiian vacation. There is something about that tropics that de-stresses me. Maybe this also happens with airline pilots. How else could you explain a recent incident where a plane flying to Hilo on the Big Island of Hawaii forgot to land.

It’s one thing for passengers on a short flight to grab 40 winks.
But it’s quite another for both the captain and his co-pilot to take a power nap at 21,000 feet.

Last night, two pilots were accused of falling asleep at the controls of a passenger jet and overshooting the airport by 15 miles.

Going, going, gone: The pilots overshot the Hilo airport runway by 15 miles

The aircraft was left on auto-pilot as the crew went off the radar and the jet drifted off course over the Pacific.

The captain and his co-pilot have been grounded and are under investigation for allegedly snoozing through 11 calls from air traffic controllers desperate to reach them.

When the skipper finally picked up a call and was asked by a panicked controller if there was anything wrong, he responded: “Uh, no emergency situation.”

I don’t tend to use a travel agent when I book travel, but it is not true that this is because I was traumatized at an early age by this classic Monty Python sketch called “Travel Agency”.

ProTraveller had a recent article about the “Top 10 Most Dangerous Airports” in the world. If you are not yet afraid of flying the videos in this article will fix that.

The top of the list is the old airport in Hong Kong (closed in 1998). Watching a 747 make a quick left onto the end of the runway just as it is landing makes one wonder who ever thought this was a good idea.

The Kai Tak Airport served as Hong Kong’s international airport from 1925 to 1998. This airport was notoriously hard to land at because of the maze of skyscrapers and mountains in the vicinity, frequent strong crosswinds and the fact that the runway was located in Victoria Harbor on a man-made strip of land. The approach to the world-famous runway 13 at Kai Tak involved grazing skyscrapers in a densely populated city, and then making a sharp right-handed turn immediately before the runway where one miscalculation could spell disaster. Not only was it tough for pilots to navigate the approach, but crosswinds made it even more difficult to keep the plane steady during, and after, the final 47° right-handed turn towards the runway. Surprisingly, there weren’t many plane crashes at Kai Tak, but there were plenty of close calls – mostly due to unstabilised landings.

Among the things you don’t expect to find when you come home from a vacation a police press conference about your suspicious disappearance is way up there on the list. But that is just what an Australian couple encountered according to a story coming over the API Wire.

A Melbourne couple returning home from vacation Monday were shocked to discover police about to hold a news conference at their house about their suspicious disappearance.

William and Heather Ostell’s daughter, Angela, had not seen or heard from her parents since Thursday. She went to their house in the southeast Australian city and discovered the front door unlocked, their car gone and their dog home alone.

So she called the police and reported her parents missing.

Homicide detectives were holding a press conference Monday morning at the Ostell’s home to appeal for information when the couple drove up.

Note to self: tell my loved ones before I go on vacation.

I have mentioned Kayak.Kayak.com before as one of my favorite sites to use for booking air travel. Kayak sent out a reminder of how to save money booking holiday travel that is worth passing along. If you specify that your dates are flexible (you must create an account to use this feature) you can bring up a graph that will help you pick the best day to fly.

It pays to know what others are paying. After doing a flight search, check the airfare history for a desired route by clicking on Chart View on the flight results page. Kayak’s Best Fare Trend Graph charts pricing for city/date pairs found by Kayak.com users over the past 90 days.

This chart will:

1. Let you know if the deal you are looking at is a good deal
2. Let you know if you might get a better deal by moving your trip a few days