NTSB investigating possible nodding off of Northwest pilots

[Tan]

I wouldn’t be surprised to see the “stress” factor due to the merger of NWA and DL used as a rebuttal by the defence. Probably true in any case so it’s possible they could walk.

[enoon]

do you have to wear one of those powdered wigs and call the judge, "MiLord"?

I do. Actually we don't powder the wigs (I am not sure when that stopped - but it would have been way before my time). My wig and gown are right behind me, in exactly the kind of soft bag Dickens describes in "Bleak House".

Just for fun...is there any defense strategy that you would offer the two wayward pilots? IF I were the copilot, I would say that the captain ordered me to use my PC. then I would sue NW for a hostile work environment.

As for a strategy, we have a simple rule (and I bet pablo21 will confirm you have it there too), I can conscientiously advocate any view of the facts that my client tells me is true - up to and including alien abduction, fairies invading the flight deck and automatism (no control over my actions), due to the unreasonable demands of my employers. I am not allowed to make stuff up out my own head though - not even for money.

[cessnapuppy]

The driver was held not to be on a frolic of his own, but doing what he was paid to do, negligently

But isnt resolving and working on "roster issues" what they are paid to do, and doing it (at the expense of flying and monitoring the aircraft and making communications) the negligent part of it?

So while it could have been truly negligent, they were not "departing out on a frolic of their own" -while that may be cold comfort and little bearing on the outcome (like being charged with murder of a child vs just plain murder when both charges carry the death penalty) it may indicate some kind of "rush to judgment" or "unfairly and inaccurate prejudicial utterances which poison the 'jury pool' " (NTSB appellate administrators watch tv like everyone else)

The other thing, does Delta/Northwest put requirements on pilots to know completely, this rostering ****, and do they provide adequate (paid) time for this knowledge to be reasonably acquired, and does Delta have a 'willful ignorance' issue going on?

Was Delta aware (or should reasonably be expected to be aware) of previous use of Laptops in the cockpit and turned a blind eye?

Originally Posted by "Ditchdigger and mathfox

This is a case of a seasoned, professional aircrew, going off in pursuit of a mistake, so to speak, and pursuing it for more than an hour.

If it was not something peculiar to these two individual pilots, is this something that could happen to any similar aircrew?
Mathfox
Reformulating: Is there a systemic flaw behind this incident?
Pairing up two pilots that encourage unprofessional behaviour, behind a closed and locked door...

Yes, the closed door: oversight by the passengers and cabin crew might have prevented the incident.

The above is quite telling: The 9-11 evolved cockpit where these guys are sequestered like virgin nuns, cut off from all social interaction except that borne by disembodied voices floating from the ether? - have a door if you must, but make it a glass door me thinks, and reestablish the connection between pilot and crew/pax. In that cloistered environment, its easy to see where deviant behavior (behavior outside of prescribed norms) will develop.

Its interesting to note the curious dynamic of the 'distraction' as reported to the press:

The senior pilot (captain, PIC) asked the junior pilot for counsel on the rostering system. Eager to please, the junior pilot would spare no effort (or monitoring of the aircraft,lol) to address the request of his senior.

I would therefore probably mitigate the punishment meted out by bearing that part of it in mind.

[protectthehornet]

wondering...whose leg was it?aaaaaaaaaaaa

wondering ...surly someone knows

[bugg smasher]

Fish, chips, and hamburgers

This Thread has broken the myth I had about Americans - I thought cowboys only rode horses!

The single biggest achievement Danny has accomplished in creating this website, has been to facilitate honest, direct and open communication between professional pilot groups across a broad spectrum of nationalities, aviation cultures, and in the macro view of things, individual pilots driven by peculiar agendas of their own, for whatever reason. In knocking heads together laptop-wise (Northwest excepted here), and I can only speak for myself, I have gleaned much of value in these hallowed halls.

That Danny has a brand new BMW for his efforts is neither here nor there.

We continue to enjoy intelligent input from highly respected professionals in other walks of life, the aviation interface evidently reaches across a broad spectrum of society.

So, FOK, the next time you pull the ‘Sun Never Sets on the British Empire’ card, f@rk off smartly, and don’t come back. Beer is cold in these parts, but I’ll happily try a warm one, if that’s what it takes for you to talk to me on the level.

[RobertS975]

Lots of Alleged Facts in the Revocation Letter

Some of the details heretofore missing are contained in the copy of the revocation letter:

http://stmedia.startribune.com/docum...nDaycUiacyKUUr

[28L]

Ref section 17 of the link, I can't for the life of me see where the 91 minutes comes from

[MathFox]

Ref section 17 of the link, I can't for the life of me see where the 91 minutes comes from

You'ld say 50 minutes is closer to the truth (I don't feel like taking out my pocket calculator to compute it to the second accurate...) Anyway, that is a significant amount of time to not "aviate" while being paid to do so.

My (SLF) opinion (add salt to taste) is that we saw "unprofessional conduct" of two people responsible for a safe flight. I don't about the revocation of pilot licenses... what I am seriously concerned about is how such could be hired and remain in service for 1000's of flying hours. That is IMO a serious (NWA and FAA) management problem. How many flights did those two "pilots" endanger over the years?
(I would not be surprised if management attitudes towards their flight crews, "cut thier salaries", contributed to reduced motivation of these pilots. )

[RobertS975]

28L, I believe that the 91 minutes simply reflects the time between the last communication before the lapse and the initial communication after the lapse. I agree that it is misleading since it was only 76 minutes from the time that Denver ARTCC attempted to communicate with NW 188 until communication was re-established.

[BobT]

In my earlier post in the thread I expressed amusement at the excuses being made for allegedly professional pilots. I am now mind-boggled at the allegedly professional pilots making the excuses on this thread.

A reminder since some here apparently need it - the first job of the pilot is to operate the aircraft safely. Ignoring the aircraft with ~150 people aboard (which you refer to as mere self-loading freight, perhaps another indicator of the problems with the industry) for 90 minutes and ignoring radio calls and overflying the destination is nobody's definition of safe. I applaud the FAA for its swift, and correct, action.

If the attitude of the allegedly professional pilots here is representative, the industry is in more trouble than I ever thought.

[Pugilistic Animus]

91.13 gets them all the time,...notice there were no 121 rules listed all 91 for those pilot who don't think part 91 applies to airline ops!!!

edit 91.13 is the most severe airlaw written; it is defined vaguely so that they can pull your certificate as they please--beware

[Eboy]

FAA's Delayed Alert on Northwest Flight Sparks Concern

From the Wall Street Journal. . .

The Federal Aviation Administration violated its own rules by taking more than 40 minutes to alert the military after losing communication with a Northwest Airlines flight last week, according to officials familiar with internal reviews under way at several federal agencies.

FAA's Delayed Alert on Northwest Flight Sparks Concern - WSJ.com

[SpyPilot]

According to the revocation letter, the hand off call was at 7:24 and communication re-established at 8:14. My arithmetic tells me thats 50 minutes yet the FAA alleges 91. This infers, without any explanation, that the last acknowleged call was around 6:45 and that there were no further communications between the the aircraft and ATC for 41 minutes.

I find it peculiar that there are abundant details in the letter covering the period between 7:24 and 8:14 but no explanation at all as to why they allege that the aircraft was without any communication at all for 91 minutes.

[repariit]

SpyPilot says: "I find it peculiar that there are abundant details in the letter covering the period between 7:24 and 8:14 but no explanation at all as to why they allege that the aircraft was without any communication at all for 91 minutes."

The comm at 6:45 CDT was probably NW188 checking into that sector, it was prior to the point where they became deaf to further comm's and blind to ACARS and without interruption of further ATC calls until the attempted hand-off at 7:24 CDT. This would be the first indication to ATC that all was not well, and therefore is properly the focus of attention. 91 minutes between transmissions from NW188, and 50 minutes of it after ATC had reason to figure out what was up.

[SDFlyer]

BobT: "In my earlier post in the thread I expressed amusement at the excuses being made for allegedly professional pilots. I am now mind-boggled at the allegedly professional pilots making the excuses on this thread."

Sir, you clearly haven't spent much time on this forum - or your mind would no longer be boggled. I'd also recommend that you find yourself a good heat shield if you persist along these lines ..... you're gonna need it.


You will also find many here vehemently opposed to cockpit videocams, which is perhaps understandable but not exactly a position supported by stunts like this, is it now? You can be sure NTSB will make the most of the situation and further push their recommendation. There are even those here who have encouraged the destruction of incriminating audio recordings - go figure.



<dons the suit>

[pattern_is_full]

I think the question about the first half of the missed 91 total minutes is....so what happened during that time?

The Denver ARTCC is a big chunk of real estate: Military Comms Monitoring. HF VHF UHF

about 500nm across on the SW>NE path of this flight (from roughly GCN to LBF and beyond).

One would expect there to have been other handoffs or attempted handoffs in that 45 minutes within Denver's area - unless there was just one controller handling all the high alt. traffic that evening across (conservatively) 200,000 square miles? Heck of a big radar screen!

Certainly there are a lot of "high alt." frequencies assigned to Denver Center.

Was it SOP for a plane to be silent for that distance and time - and no one caught on until the exit?

[iceman50]

SDFlyer BobT

I think you will find that many of the comments / excuses are NOT made by Professional Pilots, this website can be accessed by all and sundry, at times it is a "Professional Pilots" Rumour Network in name only. There are far too many that comment on the website without even stating what there "profession" is on their personal information.

As these are anonymous forums the origins of the contributions may be opposite to what may be apparent. In fact the press may use it, or the unscrupulous, or sciolists*, to elicit certain reactions.

[SDFlyer]

That is a an important caveat but I am confident that at least some of them are what they seem to be. Well at least they're honest. Maybe I'd feel the same in their shoes - my own profession is imploding almost as spectacularly and their isn't a union in sight to break the fall even a tad.

Splendid posting enoon, I'll spread the good word to other fora. I did look up frolic in hopes of coming up with something erudite and relevant but found only the dutch derivation. Interesting certainly, but unenlightening in this context. I mean, trying to understand scheduling blasted software is noone's idea of a gay old time .....

[Ditchdigger]

In my earlier post in the thread I expressed amusement at the excuses being made for allegedly professional pilots. I am now mind-boggled at the allegedly professional pilots making the excuses on this thread.

As I ponder this subject more, I'm thinking that, if last week, you had described only the circumstances of this incident, without providing the details that have subsequently been revealed, and asked any given pilot, "Could this happen to you?", you'd have received a unanimous reply of "No." That would've included the two gentlemen in question.

That it did happen, has to be pretty unnerving to any pilot that recognizes his or her own humanity, and I'm sure the professionals are taking from it the relevant lessons, regardless of what comments are being posted here...

[CaptainChaotic]

Coincidence that the missing time happens to be the length of the average movie ?

Watching a movie on a notebook would be a frolic, lost in scheduling would be negligent.

The fact that no one wants to elaborate on the distraction, seems as if the pilots might have taken a years suspension in return for not revealing they were watching a movie.

Just wild speculation.