Aircrew dozing/sleeping on sorties

[Tony Kearns]

During a short period of correspondence with Ofw.Rudi Hengst 3./KG27, he mentioned in one of his letters that two crewmen arrived in the Curragh Internment Camp in May 1941. Their aircraft a Heinkel H-5 V4+DK W.Nr. 4063 III./KG40 had crashed during an anti shipping sortie in the Irish Sea in the early hours of 6 May 1941. Rudi Hengst passed away after a number of letters had passed between us, but not before his unpublished memoirs arrived to me, I had been able to supply details of some incidents he was involved in from the British side and more or less completed his story.
A later letter explained more. In the camp, understandably, it took some time for the story of events to emerge. Apparently the drone of the engines flying on auto pilot induced doziness and sleepiness and it was when one of the crew suddenly noticed that they were so near the sea he called the pilot. The pilot reacted by pulling back on the controls but the tail wheel struck the water and in they went. Two crewmen were lost.

Has anyone ever come across this or a like incident before?
Many thanks
Regards
Tony K