Posted on 10/22/2009 3:33:07 PM PDT by rdl6989
MINNEAPOLIS - Federal officials said Thursday they are investigating whether pilot fatigue was a factor in a Northwest Airlines jet overflying the Minneapolis airport by 150 miles before crew members discovered their mistake and turned around.
The plane landed safely Wednesday evening, and none of the passengers or crew was hurt, the National Transportation Safety Board said. Northwest's parent, Delta Airlines Inc., said the jet carried 144 passengers and five crew members.
The NTSB said Northwest flight 188, an Airbus A320, was flying from San Diego to Minneapolis and lost radio contact with controllers just before 7 p.m. CDT when it was at 37,000 feet. The jet flew over the airport just before 8 p.m. and overshot it by 150 miles before communications were re-established at 8:14 p.m, the NTSB said. Story continues below ↓advertisement | your ad here
The Federal Aviation Administration said the crew told authorities they became distracted during a heated discussion over airline policy and lost track of where they were.
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
Reminder to flight crew: do not hit the snooze button or you will overshoot the airport by 150 miles.
I hate flying.
I’ve never been fond of flying and things like this do nothing to relieve my white knuckles.
Notice how of late everything is being related to “fatigue” now in the airline industry?
Nor mine. I have to fly this winter. I’m already having nightmares.
“Overshoot” sounds like they ran out of runway. This sounds more like they missed their exit. Granted, they missed it big time...
As a pilot all I can say is WTH!?!?!??!
I’ve never heard of an incident due to the crew arguing.
Well not that big. At cruising speed 150 miles is like 10 minutes maybe 15. And probably 5 of that was somebody saying “I think we missed”.
Weird. The Airbus’ automated systems should have been yelling at the flight crew. I kinda thought Airbus sutopilots don’t like to fly beyond waypoints entered the flight plan.
Granted, at .86 or so Mach, they only missed by 17 minutes ...
OOPS!
Once again the ancient FAA navigation and air traffic control system on display. If the pilot only had a $100 GPS receiver in his pocket or a GPS-enabled smartphone, he would have a better idea of where he was than relying on gyros and radio beacons like airlines have been doing for the last 100 yrs.
AND they were at FL 370, so they missed the hand off from en route to approach control completely.
Talk about inattentive.
I’m guessing one was a liberal and the others were conservatives. Maybe they need Admin Mods on planes!
The 320 coulda told them everything. They WERE NOT paying attention.
George was flying and they were yakking or sleeping.
The only guy I knew that did that was on a cargo flight and took his girl friend along.
He put on auto pilot, retreated to the back of the plane to take care of his girl friend and was 120 miles past Seattle over the Pacific when he returned to the controls.
Ain’t it a cwyin’ shame?
How could they have been so distracted that they didn't realize they hadn't spoken with a controller for several minutes.
Something about this doesn't pass the smell test. Once they start their descent any altitude they're at is only temporary, as is their heading usually. It's hard to take this at face value.
In any event, no one on the flight crew should ever be allowed in a cockpit again.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.