What we should be aware of is that MANY people were not paying attention...and no one was doing anything. A disaster waiting to happen.
All those passengers and no one noticed "THE TIME" or a landmark???
Personally I cannot fathom how the road warriors onboard would not have inquired about their arrival time, but bear in mind they only flew 150 miles PAST their destination, which is about 15 - 20 minutes. Not everyone would be immediately concerned that they had not started their descent/ initial approach.
I understand they were flying at 37,000 ft., so if there was cloud cover at any altitude below them, folks might have missed landmarks.
Also, they (pilots) might have inadvertently entered an incorrect frequency on their radio after being ‘handed off’ from one controller to the next.
There’s reasons why they could ‘lose’ radio contact.
BUT ... in an A320 I cannot believe the nav system/ flight computer wouldn’t have nagged them terribly about waypoints.
This is one for the books.
“Passengers should have noticed”.
How many times has this been written and the logic ignored?
Passengers are so used to being late because of traffic or weather holds that they would have paid no attention.
I do wonder about the attendants not asking, because they are usually aware of potential weather or traffic holds well in advance.
So it is odd that no flight attendant asked.
But it could be something as simple as the crew putting the wrong way point into the navigation system and not realizing what they had done until they got to that point, or near it, and found out there was no MSP there.
It would be interesting to know where they reversed or ask to reverse course and what prominent way point was in proximity at that time and whether its ID was anything close to the ID for MSP.
If they used lat. and long., it could have been a simple mistake in the numbers.
It would be helpful if some of the big iron guys would speculate, but I can see the reluctance to say anything that might prejudice the future of these guys.
Losing contact with the center is not at all unusual. What is really unusual and at the heart of the mystery is why, barring an electrical emergency, they had TOTAL radio failure. If they remained on the last frequency expecting to be turned over to the next, center would have a flight in that vicinity call them on their last assigned frequency.
In addition, I would expect that their company would have called them to verify their arrival time.
A very odd incident to say the least.
“Passengers should have noticed”.
How many times has this been written and the logic ignored?
Passengers are so used to being late because of traffic or weather holds that they would have paid no attention.
I do wonder about the attendants not asking, because they are usually aware of potential weather or traffic holds well in advance.
So it is odd that no flight attendant asked.
But it could be something as simple as the crew putting the wrong way point into the navigation system and not realizing what they had done until they got to that point, or near it, and found out there was no MSP there.
It would be interesting to know where they reversed or ask to reverse course and what prominent way point was in proximity at that time and whether its ID was anything close to the ID for MSP.
If they used lat. and long., it could have been a simple mistake in the numbers.
It would be helpful if some of the big iron guys would speculate, but I can see the reluctance to say anything that might prejudice the future of these guys.
Losing contact with the center is not at all unusual. What is really unusual and at the heart of the mystery is why, barring an electrical emergency, they had TOTAL radio failure. If they remained on the last frequency expecting to be turned over to the next, center would have a flight in that vicinity call them on their last assigned frequency.
In addition, I would expect that their company would have called them to verify their arrival time.
A very odd incident to say the least.