Were They Text Messaging?
By Johnny Roosh
A Northwest Airbus A320 flying from San Diego overshot its Twin Cities destination by about 150 miles on Wednesday, apparently when the crew became distracted, the National Transportation Safety Board said today.
(Passengers aboard the airliner were unaware – having grown accustomed to flight delays.-JR)
Hey, I’ve missed an exit before…what’s the big deal?
Apparently they were not texting:
The Federal Administration (FAA) said the FBI and airport police interviewed the crew, who said they “were in a heated discussion over airline policy and they lost situational awareness.” The NTSB is scheduling an interview with the crew.
…you think they will pull that cockpit audio tape?
The cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder are being sent to the NTSB laboratory in Washington, D.C.
Oh yeah.
October 22nd, 2009 at 8:44 pm
How much fuel do you think they had left when they landed? 300 extra miles probably added 45-60 minutes of extra air time.
October 22nd, 2009 at 8:58 pm
A few years ago a local airline was going Honolulu -> Hilo on the Big Island. They overshot Hilo by about 150 miles. It’s about a half hour flight from Honolulu to Hilo. Next landfall in a straight line is about 3,000 miles. The FAA determined that both pilots had both fallen asleep.
Both of them are now looking for other work. Mattress testing, maybe.
October 23rd, 2009 at 10:28 am
Pilots typically don’t like to comment too much on incidents & accidents, especially early in the investigation, but WTF!
That must have been some argument! If you don’t respond to a radio call from ATC you become the center of attention. They call for you repeatedly & once you start doing unexpected stuff, that attention intensifies. Unless the argument had become so heated that they threw down their headsets, jumped out of their seat & started duking it out (which is a possibility), I don’t believe it!
I don’t fly the Airbus, but it’s technically advanced & highly automated. There must have been at least 5 visual indicators showing that things were not right… including a moving map picturing their plane approaching & passing MSP, & about a bazzillion other indicators saying you were getting close to MSP.They would have had to been totally immersed in this argument for close to an hour to screw up this big in this airplane!
I’d bet that the fell asleep, & thought that making up a story about the argument would be less trouble… forgetting that a CVR (black box) would record it all. I could be wrong, but if I am that was one hell of an argument!
October 23rd, 2009 at 10:57 am
I wonder if there is audio and/or video recording of the cockpit activity. Maybe, if it was a male and female pilot….mile high club, etc.
October 23rd, 2009 at 11:14 am
Gotta figure they lost an argument with the Sandman.
October 23rd, 2009 at 12:32 pm
“were in a heated discussion over airline policy and they lost situational awareness.”
Did either have a bloody nose, fat lip, or black eye? I’m having a vision of Michael Buffer announcing “LETS GET READY TO RUMBLE”….wink
October 23rd, 2009 at 5:14 pm
Fatigue & crew rest requirements are such a hot topic right now. I don’t know why they would want to hide them falling asleep. They would be poster children for pushing the issue through the FAA, & be sympathetic heroes. they could pin the responsibility on Delta/NWA scheduling policies & succumbing to the human nature to sleep when tired.
This “heated argument” excuse just leaves them open to all kinds of charges of neglect, incompetence, & un-professional behavior… IMO
October 23rd, 2009 at 5:45 pm
So far, the only logical argument is they fell asleep. And as was said above , they would have had a moving map display showing them exactly where they were. The problem with the CVR is that if it`s an older model, it would only record the last 30 minutes, which would be the portion of the flight from Wisconson back to the Cities. Nothing from the time in question would be on it, as they were back in radio communication at that time.
October 26th, 2009 at 10:58 am
I hate to say it, but being an airline pilot is a mind-numbingly boring job.
I’ve been doing the airline thing for a year & a half, & most of the work we do is highly repetitive & monotonous. Takeoff is still great, but under normal circumstances, once we reach 3000 feet above the ground, most of the work is done until we prepare for the approach & landing phase, which we do about 30 minutes prior to landing.
We are typically scheduled for 9-10 hours of “rest,” but it begins 15 minutes after the plane’s door opens at the overnight destination, & ends when we are required to be at the gate…30 minutes prior to departure in the morning. We still have at least 10 minutes of stuff to do, & we have to wait for the hotel van to pick us up. So our “rest” usually starts at the airport, while we are still “working.” We typically wait 5-10 minutes for the van to arrive, & van rides are usually 10 minutes long. give us another 5-10 minutes to check in. So at a good place, we are typically already 40 minutes into our “rest” before we even get a room key.
Once in the room, we still need at minimum to settle in & get ready for bed… then actually go to sleep. for me this typically takes 1.5-2 hours. In the morning, I get up about 30 minutes before the van leaves for the hotel.
The van leaving from the hotel can also be an issue. Sometimes it’s on demand, but most of the time it leaves at a scheduled time, like every half hour. Sometimes it works fine, but other times it takes 30 minutes to nearly an hour out of the “rest”. And of course the van ride to the airport is another 10 minutes.
So now we are up to 2.5-3 hours of our “rest” that is non-rest. So if everything works perfectly, On a good night, I get 6 hours of sleep. In reality, I usually get 4-5 hours of sleep.
Then we take off, turn on the autopilot & then what? Well, we are allowed to either read “company material” (aka handbooks & procedures) or stare out the window. NOTHING else. the flight from San Diego is about 3 hours long… they fell asleep.