NWA Plane Overshoots Airport by More Than 100 Miles

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PetalumaLoco said:
MrFSS said:
PetalumaLoco said:
last time I used it on a plane, a very stern attendant told be in no uncertain terms to shut it off, as it was illegal to receive radio signals on a plane.
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I had a flight attendant tell me to stop taking pictures out the window on a flight a few months ago.
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Now that's just freaking ridiculous!
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In March, I was taking pictures of the NY skyline on my cell phone camera while the plane was coming in for a landing at Newark Airport - and the FA told me to turn it off! :angry: (BTW - the cell phone was on airplane mode!)

AAARGH! said:
the max speed on my GPS is 600 MPH!
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I had my GPS read the train was MOVING at 748 MPH! :eek:

The problem was - we were stopped at the platform at WAS at the time! :lol:
 
Bill Haithcoat said:
Am I missing something here? Why did not the flight attendants notice a problem? Seems like they would have noticed that they were flying past the city lights, or, if not, why are we late all of a sudden?
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The flight attendants might not think anything is unusual for a while. A flight can get vectored for traffic ("What's our vector, Victor?"), so the fact that they are not descending at the expected time would not raise a flag at first. Also, most flight attendants don't spend much time looking out the window. In the end, it was a flight attendant who felt that something was odd and tipped off the flight deck that they had overshot the station, so to speak.
 
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Liked the reference to "Airplane", still the funniest movie ever! Guess the next time you go to WAL-MART or a fast food joint you can say hello to these EX-Pilots, maybe they can stay awake while greeting shoppers during the holiday rush!!

("You can tell me, I'm a Doctor!" "We're all counting on you!" "Roger, Roger!" :lol: :lol: :lol:
 
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PRR 60 and Jim Hudson, I too think "Airplane" is the funniest movie ever.

And it continues to be funny every time I see it.

And every time I watch it I think that I notice something I had not seen before.

That makes it, indeed, a classic.
 
PRR 60 said:
Bill Haithcoat said:
Am I missing something here? Why did not the flight attendants notice a problem? Seems like they would have noticed that they were flying past the city lights, or, if not, why are we late all of a sudden?
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The flight attendants might not think anything is unusual for a while. A flight can get vectored for traffic ("What's our vector, Victor?"), so the fact that they are not descending at the expected time would not raise a flag at first. Also, most flight attendants don't spend much time looking out the window. In the end, it was a flight attendant who felt that something was odd and tipped off the flight deck that they had overshot the station, so to speak.
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It would have been even more interesting if this were a United flight and Channel 9 was on and a pesky passenger like you or me would draw the attention of the cabin crew that for some reason our cockpit was not responding to ATC calls. :)
 
MrFSS said:
Bill Haithcoat said:
Am I missing something here? Why did not the flight attendants notice a problem? Seems like they would have noticed that they were flying past the city lights, or, if not, why are we late all of a sudden?
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Here is more information.

The pilots were finally alerted to their situation when a flight attendant called on an intercom from the cabin.
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If NWA policy is like Delta (who owns them now) the cockpit doors are locked and there is a seperation between the pilots and service crew to the point that the service crews don't talk to the pilots unless there's something wrong.

Between crossing time zones and the dimming sunlight nobody may have noticed any thing. I don't know but given the time the final clue may have been the fact that the sun was going down...

There are voice recorders now, as part of the Back Box, right?
I heard considerations for video after that Air France plane went missing in the Atlantic. It could help in crash investigations.
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Yes voice recorders have been in the "black" box assembly for some time. A few years ago the FAA mandated that all planes use 2 hour long recorders, however this is an older plane that only had a 30-minute recorder. After 30 minutes it records over itself so that all that is recorded is the final moments of a plane before an accident which is, hypothetically, the most important when it comes to accident investigation.

Since it is only 30 minutes the only people who are witness to the pilots' actions are the pilots themselves-- there is absolutely no evidence and no way to disprove their story. And, bearing in mind they're presumed innocent until proven otherwise, their testimony is going to have to be accepted by the NTSB as the truth unless one of them decides to talk more... honestly...
 
A commercial pilots' take from his outsanding blog site Flight Level 390 which gives a lot of insight into daily ops and dealing with their airline company:

October 24, 2009

[i was working on another post, but decided to comment on the recent ruckus caused by an A320 that apparently overflew it's destination by, allegedly, 150 miles before turning back to the airport.
Thank you Lord that I was not the captain on that aircraft. Whew! Missed another bullet. I have no idea what happened on that flight deck, nor will I postulate about it. I saw one of the pilots on a mainstream media report (BIG MISTAKE!) denying that they were sleeping or arguing, so that points to a third possibility, I guess.

To the flying or, for that matter, the non-flying public, this incident surely seems mighty strange, but it has happened many times since the beginning of air carrier operations back in the late 1920s. Airline pilots, also, have landed at the wrong airport many times, landed on taxiways instead of runways hundreds, no, thousands of times, landed on the wrong runway countless times, and the list goes on.

Any airline pilot who has been at this game long enough has lost contact with ATC numerous times. Usually dispatch contacts the crew by email, or in the days before email, by company frequency.

To this point in my career, I have not (knock on wood) landed at the wrong airport, on the wrong runway, or overflown my destination.

Unfortunately, this incident will probably lead to more regulations on top of the suffocating layers of regs we currently work under.

Not wanting to criticize without offering a solution, I fall back on my idea of Ameriflot, an Americanized version of the old Soviet air carrier, Aeroflot. We need a PCO (political correctness officer) sitting behind the comrade captain and an RCO (regulation compliance officer) sitting in the middle jump seat helping the crew navigate the maze of rules and regulations governing every flight.

Life on the Line continues...
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And, here is the answer, perhaps:

WASHINGTON (AP) - Two Northwest Airlines pilots have told federal investigators that they were going over schedules using their laptop computers in violation of company policy while their plane overflew their Minneapolis destination by 150 miles, the National Transportation Safety Board said Monday.

The pilots - Richard Cole of Salem, Ore., the first officer, and Timothy Cheney of Gig Harbor, Wash., the captain - said in interviews conducted over the weekend that they were not fatigued and didn't fall asleep, the board said in a statement. Instead, Cole and Cheney told investigators that they both had their laptops out while the first officer, who had more experience with scheduling, instructed the captain on monthly flight crew scheduling. The pilots were out of communication with air traffic controllers and their airline for more than an hour and didn't realize their mistake until contacted by a flight attendant, the board said.

LINK
 
MrFSS said:
And, here is the answer, perhaps:
WASHINGTON (AP) - Two Northwest Airlines pilots have told federal investigators that they were going over schedules using their laptop computers in violation of company policy while their plane overflew their Minneapolis destination by 150 miles, the National Transportation Safety Board said Monday.

The pilots - Richard Cole of Salem, Ore., the first officer, and Timothy Cheney of Gig Harbor, Wash., the captain - said in interviews conducted over the weekend that they were not fatigued and didn't fall asleep, the board said in a statement. Instead, Cole and Cheney told investigators that they both had their laptops out while the first officer, who had more experience with scheduling, instructed the captain on monthly flight crew scheduling. The pilots were out of communication with air traffic controllers and their airline for more than an hour and didn't realize their mistake until contacted by a flight attendant, the board said.

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Scheduling my butt! They were RPG-ing!
 
Well I was wrong about them doing RPG;

guitarhero4.jpg
 
Well, they are not going to have to worry about how to figure out those schedules anytime soon!

They can take their time on the ground to figure out the morning shift as a Mart greeter.
 
How do you get distracted by your laptop for two hours while flying a freaking jet?

Answer: Well, how do you fall asleep or argue for two hours? It's all the same. You're just dumb.
 
Neil_M said:
ALC_Rail_Writer said:
How do you get distracted by your laptop for two hours while flying a freaking jet?
Answer: Well, how do you fall asleep or argue for two hours? It's all the same. You're just dumb.
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How long should you sleep to be classified as not dumb?
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While your flying a "freaking jet"... five seconds? I don't know-- can't be all that much.
 
WASHINGTON – The Federal Aviation Administration on Tuesday revoked the licenses of the two Northwest Airlines pilots who overshot their Minneapolis destination by 150 miles.The pilots — Timothy Cheney of Gig Harbor, Wash., the captain, and Richard Cole of Salem, Ore., the first officer — told safety investigators they were working on their personal laptop computers and lost track of time and place.
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Full story here.

Well, they won't be overflying their destinations any time soon--
 
ALC_Rail_Writer said:
WASHINGTON – The Federal Aviation Administration on Tuesday revoked the licenses of the two Northwest Airlines pilots who overshot their Minneapolis destination by 150 miles.The pilots — Timothy Cheney of Gig Harbor, Wash., the captain, and Richard Cole of Salem, Ore., the first officer — told safety investigators they were working on their personal laptop computers and lost track of time and place.
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Full story here.

Well, they won't be overflying their destinations any time soon--
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Sanity prevails. This was the only way to bring this to an end: Zero Tolerance.
 
jis said:
It would have been even more interesting if this were a United flight and Channel 9 was on and a pesky passenger like you or me would draw the attention of the cabin crew that for some reason our cockpit was not responding to ATC calls. :)
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Funny, I thought the same thing. Push call button: "Excuse me, but ATC has been trying to contact our flight for the last 15 minutes. Maybe you should call up front and see if they both had the fish for dinner?"
 
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PRR 60 said:
jis said:
It would have been even more interesting if this were a United flight and Channel 9 was on and a pesky passenger like you or me would draw the attention of the cabin crew that for some reason our cockpit was not responding to ATC calls. :)
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Funny, I thought the same thing. Push call button: "Excuse me, but ATC has been trying to contact our flight for the last 15 minutes. Maybe you should call up front and see of they both had the fish for dinner?"
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So many lines from "Airplane" come to mind. Too many to list here. :lol:
 

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