Biggles - I don't disagree with you. Have missed the chance to say goodbye to more than a few chums that got on the wrong side of unfriendly weather. Perhaps should have just stifled the whole thought out of respect for them.
Reason I did not stay smart and silent is that the news story has a slightly fishy quality about it - and the reasons for that off-odor don't exactly leap out for viewing.
The big question in my noggin was how this partiuclar situation was escalated out of the noise of life, commerce, clouds, etcetera to rise to the level of an FAA administrative proceeding resulting in sanctions and soon probably a full-bore trial on the appeal of the administrative action.
The news story notes that the airline is on the record as saying that the crew was operating within the wx avoidance limitations of company regs, so there do appear to be two sides to the story.
"Passenger Dr. Gary Timmerman of Sioux Falls" is quoted extensively in the press-release story -- with numerous negative remarks by him about the situation. This might be a clue.
One needs to realize that Sioux Falls is big in size if a person must walk from one city limit to the opposite, but, like many spots in the American outback, the whole place will feel like it is only about 5 inches square if you happen to get on the wrong side of a prominent local citizen with some political pull and the inclination to use it.
A little digging turns up a news story in a NATIONAL U.S. paper that cites Dr. Timmerman as a prominent fund raiser and contributor to the Republican / Bush campaign bandwagon.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/politic...bundlers_x.htm
Another news story has him reporting on his activities lobbying in Washington for a medical organization.
http://www.facs.org/memberservices/cys/cysnews00.html
Another news story has him testifying on Capitol Hill against a piece of legislation.
http://legis.state.sd.us/sessions/19...HE01280745.htm
Another news story offers the tantalizing (but truncated) comment that: "Dr. Gary Timmerman of Sioux Falls got to meet the crew of Northwest Airlines flight 1462 even before the plane took off from Minneapolis on June 24. ....." His picture is on the front page of that local paper.
http://www.thepublicopinion.com/cont...ugust%2019.pdf
And, finally, a news story on August 18th gives a much more 3-dimensional description of the circumstances and reveals some interesting tidbits, including that the Tower staff had
evidently chosen to abandon their operating positions at the time of the incident on advice from their supporting weather office that high speed winds were approaching.
It's very interesting that "the captain 20-year veteran with the company and has much experience flying in South Dakota", but the pilot flying (or at least the one talking) was evidently a female person whose name does not appear anywhere, that I can see, in the reports.
http://www.usatoday.com/travel/news/...do-landing.htm (good info!)
So what can one conclude from this extra dollop of information? A) Several different flavors of a*ss-covering seem to be underway. B) A well-connected doctor with a yen for demonstrating his political power may have poured some petrol on the situation by yanking on appendages at the Federal Agency involved, C) The actual wx seemingly did not "look" so bad at the time, but proved bad enough to eventually frighten the stuffing out of nearly everyone involved.
The made-for-telly movie version will undoubtedly clarify it all.....