NTSB investigating possible nodding off of Northwest pilots
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is flying too routine? are we so ''fat dumb and happy'' that we can't concentrate?
back in Wilbur and Orville's day, we had to concentrate just to keep the thing in the air.
the next big improvement in flying must be to have beautiful women come to the cockpit on a regular basis.
oh yeah, before the 9-11 attack, we had that all the time!!!
back in Wilbur and Orville's day, we had to concentrate just to keep the thing in the air.
the next big improvement in flying must be to have beautiful women come to the cockpit on a regular basis.
oh yeah, before the 9-11 attack, we had that all the time!!!
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And Airbus A320 doesn't have LNAV.
For the Heading Knob, Pushing in would be "Managed", the FMGC Will follow the Flight path that's been programmed. Just like LNAV
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I am amused by the people on this thread who are making excuses for this crew, or are wanting to 'avoid a rush to judgment'. Allegedly professional pilots with ~150 passengers in back overflew their destination by 100 miles. They should have their certs lifted - today - and never fly professionally again.
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It is not the dstn overfly of 100 plus minus miles that is so dramatic, but the fact that they flew over 600 miles with no radio comunication. Having a discussion in the cockpit with no scan of instruments. Sure, they were wide awake, attentive, and professional. Now the cry will be, approve nap time for all crews. Unable to work for three or four hours with out taking a nap. Boy, how times have changed. Give them the benefit of doubt - why?
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So, what kind of rosters are the NWA pilots on? Anything like the EU OPS Subpart Q with up to 60 hour weekly duty? 13-15 Hr days?
I've had my copilot nod off on a 1/2 hr flight once, and after I took a look at his roster at the time, I was not surprised.
We don't fall asleep at the controls without a reason, and we don't discuss/fight, whatever, way past TOD.
I've had my copilot nod off on a 1/2 hr flight once, and after I took a look at his roster at the time, I was not surprised.
We don't fall asleep at the controls without a reason, and we don't discuss/fight, whatever, way past TOD.
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Fatigue
I guess I am SLF too. I live in the Los Angeles area. I used to fly myself all over the southwestern US in my B36TC Bonanza on business. About 10 years ago I became aware that I just wasn't putting in the hours to keep myself as current as I needed to be, especially since airspace around here was becoming more and more complicated, and I usually was thinking of a lot more than flying the plane while doing so. So I quit and now let you pro's fly me around.
But I am honestly amazed at how you guys are able to keep yourselves awake on long haul flights. Back in the tube, I pass out almost immediately after takeoff and usually have to be roused by the FA before landing. With technology taking over more and more of the routine duties (even in my Bonanza all I had to do was take off, land, and talk to ATC; the computer pretty much handled the rest), how do you manage to stay alert after you have solved all the world's problems?
Tom
But I am honestly amazed at how you guys are able to keep yourselves awake on long haul flights. Back in the tube, I pass out almost immediately after takeoff and usually have to be roused by the FA before landing. With technology taking over more and more of the routine duties (even in my Bonanza all I had to do was take off, land, and talk to ATC; the computer pretty much handled the rest), how do you manage to stay alert after you have solved all the world's problems?
Tom
Last edited by thcrozier; 24th Oct 2009 at 01:01.
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They should have their certs lifted - today - and never fly professionally again.
As for the CVR, why is it that we live in a world where a five year old can Google his way through the moons surface, yet CVR's only record a few hours max? In this day and age this is simply inexcusable! In some instances more than two hours are required in order to find the beginning of the error chain.
And what is happening to remote data capture development? Historically many innovations have started out in aviation and found use later in everyday life. In the 21'st century it looks as though it's the other way around!
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MSNBC reports:
Pilot on wayward plane: ‘No one was asleep’
Police say both men in cockpit passed breath tests, apologized after flight
msnbc.com staff and news service reports
updated 8:32 p.m. ET, Fri., Oct . 23, 2009
WASHINGTON - One of the two pilots of a Northwest Airlines jetliner that overflew its destination by 150 miles denied Friday speculation that they were asleep at the controls.
"Nobody was asleep in the cockpit," Richard I. Cole, the first officer on the flight, told KGW-TV at his Salem, Ore., home on Friday.
"Things are being said that didn’t happen, but I cant go into details."
Federal investigators are trying to determine what the crew of Flight 188 was doing at 37,000 feet as the airliner sped 150 miles past their Minneapolis destination and military jets scrambled to chase them.
A report released Friday said the pilots passed breathalyzer tests and were apologetic after Wednesday night's odyssey. They reportedly said they had been having a heated discussion about airline policy. But aviation safety experts and other pilots were frankly skeptical they could have become so consumed with shop talk that they forgot to land an airplane carrying 144 passengers.
The most likely possibility, they said, is that the pilots simply fell asleep somewhere along their route from San Diego.
"It certainly is a plausible explanation," said Bill Voss, president of the Flight Safety Foundation in Alexandria, Va.
Cole denied that he and pilot Timothy B. Cheney were either asleep or arguing to the point of distraction. "There was no arguments at all in the cockpit. That wasn’t even an issue. Absolutely not," he told KGW. He said he couldn't go into details before talking to federal investigators.
Cheney, of Gig Harbor, Wash., did not respond to requests for comment.
The cockpit voice recorder may not tell the full tale. New recorders retain as much as two hours of cockpit conversation and other noise, but the older model aboard Northwest's Flight 188 includes just the last 30 minutes — only the very end of Wednesday night's flight after the pilots realized their error over Wisconsin and were heading back to Minneapolis.
They had flown through the night with no response as air traffic controllers in two states and pilots of other planes over a wide swath of the mid-continent tried to get their attention by radio, data message and cell phone. On the ground, concerned officials alerted National Guard jets to go after the airliner from two locations, though none of the military planes got off the runway.
Too sleepy to fly?
With worries about terrorists still high, even after contact was re-established, air traffic controllers asked the crew to prove who they were by executing turns.
"Controllers have a heightened sense of vigilance when we're not able to talk to an aircraft. That's the reality post-9/11," said Doug Church, a spokesman for the National Air Traffic Controllers Association.
A report released by airport police Friday said Cheney and Cole were "cooperative, apologetic and appreciative" and volunteered to take preliminary breath tests that were negative for alcohol use. The report also said the lead flight attendant told police she was unaware of any incident during the flight.
Investigators don't know whether the pilots may have fallen asleep, but National Transportation Safety Board spokesman Keith Holloway said Friday that fatigue and cockpit distraction will be looked into. The plane's flight recorders were brought to the board's Washington headquarters.
The pilots, both temporarily suspended, are to be interviewed by NTSB investigators next week. The airline, acquired last year by Delta Air Lines, is also investigating.
Safety checks ineffective?
Voss, the Flight Safety Foundation president, said a special concern was that the many safety checks built into the aviation system to prevent incidents like this one — or to correct them quickly — apparently were ineffective until the very end.
Not only couldn't air traffic controllers and other pilots raise the Northwest pilots for an hour, but the airline's dispatcher should have been trying to reach them as well.
The three flight attendants onboard should have questioned why there were no preparations for landing being made. Brightly lit cockpit displays should have warned the pilots it was time to land. Even the bright city lights of Minneapolis should have clued them in that they'd reached their destination.
"It's probably something you would say never would happen if this hadn't just happened," Voss said.
The pilots were finally alerted to their situation when a flight attendant called on an intercom from the cabin. Two pilots flying in the vicinity were also finally able to raise the Northwest pilots using a Denver traffic control radio frequency instead of the local Minneapolis frequency.
On the ground, police and FBI agents prepared for the worst.
"When the aircraft taxied to the gate I was able to see the two white males in the seats of the flight crew, both were wearing uniforms consistent with Delta flight crew," said a police report, signed by an Officer Starch. "When the aircraft had stopped, the male seated in the pilot seat turned, looked at me and gave me two thumbs up and shook his head indicating all was OK."
Can't raise crew
Air traffic controllers in Denver had been in contact with the pilots as they flew over the Rockies, FAA spokeswoman Laura Brown said. But as the plane got closer to Minneapolis, she said, "The Denver center tried to contact the flight but couldn't get anyone."
Denver controllers notified their counterparts in Minneapolis, who also tried to reach the crew without success, Brown said.
Officials suspect Flight 188's radio might still have been tuned to a frequency used by Denver controllers even though the plane had flown beyond their reach, said
Church, the spokesman for the National Air Traffic Controllers Union. Controllers worked throughout the incident with the pilots of other planes, asking them to try to raise Flight 188 using the Denver frequency, he said.
Police meet plane
Passenger Lonnie Heidtke said he didn't notice anything unusual before the landing except that the plane was late.
The flight attendants "did say there was a delay and we'd have to orbit or something to that effect before we got back. They really didn't say we overflew Minneapolis. ...
They implied it was just a business-as-usual delay," said Heidtke, a consultant with a supercomputer consulting company based in Bloomington, Minn.
Once on the ground, the plane was met by police and FBI agents. Passengers retrieving their luggage from overhead bins were asked by flight attendants to sit down, Heidtke said. An airport police officer and a couple of other people came on board and stood at the cockpit door, talking to the pilots, he said.
"I did jokingly call my wife and say, 'This is the first time I've seen the police meet the plane. Maybe they're going to arrest the pilots for being so late.' Maybe I was right," Heidtke said.
In January 2008, two pilots for go! airlines fell asleep for at least 18 minutes during a midmorning flight from Honolulu to Hilo, Hawaii. The plane passed its destination and was heading out over open ocean before controllers raised the pilots. The captain was later diagnosed with sleep apnea.
FAA spokesman Tony Molinaro said in general, an unsafe condition created by a pilot could lead to the suspension of the person's pilot license and possibly a civil penalty.
Police say both men in cockpit passed breath tests, apologized after flight
msnbc.com staff and news service reports
updated 8:32 p.m. ET, Fri., Oct . 23, 2009
WASHINGTON - One of the two pilots of a Northwest Airlines jetliner that overflew its destination by 150 miles denied Friday speculation that they were asleep at the controls.
"Nobody was asleep in the cockpit," Richard I. Cole, the first officer on the flight, told KGW-TV at his Salem, Ore., home on Friday.
"Things are being said that didn’t happen, but I cant go into details."
Federal investigators are trying to determine what the crew of Flight 188 was doing at 37,000 feet as the airliner sped 150 miles past their Minneapolis destination and military jets scrambled to chase them.
A report released Friday said the pilots passed breathalyzer tests and were apologetic after Wednesday night's odyssey. They reportedly said they had been having a heated discussion about airline policy. But aviation safety experts and other pilots were frankly skeptical they could have become so consumed with shop talk that they forgot to land an airplane carrying 144 passengers.
The most likely possibility, they said, is that the pilots simply fell asleep somewhere along their route from San Diego.
"It certainly is a plausible explanation," said Bill Voss, president of the Flight Safety Foundation in Alexandria, Va.
Cole denied that he and pilot Timothy B. Cheney were either asleep or arguing to the point of distraction. "There was no arguments at all in the cockpit. That wasn’t even an issue. Absolutely not," he told KGW. He said he couldn't go into details before talking to federal investigators.
Cheney, of Gig Harbor, Wash., did not respond to requests for comment.
The cockpit voice recorder may not tell the full tale. New recorders retain as much as two hours of cockpit conversation and other noise, but the older model aboard Northwest's Flight 188 includes just the last 30 minutes — only the very end of Wednesday night's flight after the pilots realized their error over Wisconsin and were heading back to Minneapolis.
They had flown through the night with no response as air traffic controllers in two states and pilots of other planes over a wide swath of the mid-continent tried to get their attention by radio, data message and cell phone. On the ground, concerned officials alerted National Guard jets to go after the airliner from two locations, though none of the military planes got off the runway.
Too sleepy to fly?
With worries about terrorists still high, even after contact was re-established, air traffic controllers asked the crew to prove who they were by executing turns.
"Controllers have a heightened sense of vigilance when we're not able to talk to an aircraft. That's the reality post-9/11," said Doug Church, a spokesman for the National Air Traffic Controllers Association.
A report released by airport police Friday said Cheney and Cole were "cooperative, apologetic and appreciative" and volunteered to take preliminary breath tests that were negative for alcohol use. The report also said the lead flight attendant told police she was unaware of any incident during the flight.
Investigators don't know whether the pilots may have fallen asleep, but National Transportation Safety Board spokesman Keith Holloway said Friday that fatigue and cockpit distraction will be looked into. The plane's flight recorders were brought to the board's Washington headquarters.
The pilots, both temporarily suspended, are to be interviewed by NTSB investigators next week. The airline, acquired last year by Delta Air Lines, is also investigating.
Safety checks ineffective?
Voss, the Flight Safety Foundation president, said a special concern was that the many safety checks built into the aviation system to prevent incidents like this one — or to correct them quickly — apparently were ineffective until the very end.
Not only couldn't air traffic controllers and other pilots raise the Northwest pilots for an hour, but the airline's dispatcher should have been trying to reach them as well.
The three flight attendants onboard should have questioned why there were no preparations for landing being made. Brightly lit cockpit displays should have warned the pilots it was time to land. Even the bright city lights of Minneapolis should have clued them in that they'd reached their destination.
"It's probably something you would say never would happen if this hadn't just happened," Voss said.
The pilots were finally alerted to their situation when a flight attendant called on an intercom from the cabin. Two pilots flying in the vicinity were also finally able to raise the Northwest pilots using a Denver traffic control radio frequency instead of the local Minneapolis frequency.
On the ground, police and FBI agents prepared for the worst.
"When the aircraft taxied to the gate I was able to see the two white males in the seats of the flight crew, both were wearing uniforms consistent with Delta flight crew," said a police report, signed by an Officer Starch. "When the aircraft had stopped, the male seated in the pilot seat turned, looked at me and gave me two thumbs up and shook his head indicating all was OK."
Can't raise crew
Air traffic controllers in Denver had been in contact with the pilots as they flew over the Rockies, FAA spokeswoman Laura Brown said. But as the plane got closer to Minneapolis, she said, "The Denver center tried to contact the flight but couldn't get anyone."
Denver controllers notified their counterparts in Minneapolis, who also tried to reach the crew without success, Brown said.
Officials suspect Flight 188's radio might still have been tuned to a frequency used by Denver controllers even though the plane had flown beyond their reach, said
Church, the spokesman for the National Air Traffic Controllers Union. Controllers worked throughout the incident with the pilots of other planes, asking them to try to raise Flight 188 using the Denver frequency, he said.
Police meet plane
Passenger Lonnie Heidtke said he didn't notice anything unusual before the landing except that the plane was late.
The flight attendants "did say there was a delay and we'd have to orbit or something to that effect before we got back. They really didn't say we overflew Minneapolis. ...
They implied it was just a business-as-usual delay," said Heidtke, a consultant with a supercomputer consulting company based in Bloomington, Minn.
Once on the ground, the plane was met by police and FBI agents. Passengers retrieving their luggage from overhead bins were asked by flight attendants to sit down, Heidtke said. An airport police officer and a couple of other people came on board and stood at the cockpit door, talking to the pilots, he said.
"I did jokingly call my wife and say, 'This is the first time I've seen the police meet the plane. Maybe they're going to arrest the pilots for being so late.' Maybe I was right," Heidtke said.
In January 2008, two pilots for go! airlines fell asleep for at least 18 minutes during a midmorning flight from Honolulu to Hilo, Hawaii. The plane passed its destination and was heading out over open ocean before controllers raised the pilots. The captain was later diagnosed with sleep apnea.
FAA spokesman Tony Molinaro said in general, an unsafe condition created by a pilot could lead to the suspension of the person's pilot license and possibly a civil penalty.
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let's get serious.
the crew probably missed a handoff...it happens. I" ve heard of it happening and other planes had to call, selcal was tried and the like...it really is too bad that ''center'' can't use all freqs, but that's the budget.
and boys and girls...if you are going to get into a discussion...keep your situational awareness even if the other guy doesn't.
I'll say one more thing. When I first started with my airline, we had to monitor our company GUARD frequency. A vhf freq for our airline. We had to keep the volume up and the speaker selected. Modern ways should not have changed such simple precautions.
the crew probably missed a handoff...it happens. I" ve heard of it happening and other planes had to call, selcal was tried and the like...it really is too bad that ''center'' can't use all freqs, but that's the budget.
and boys and girls...if you are going to get into a discussion...keep your situational awareness even if the other guy doesn't.
I'll say one more thing. When I first started with my airline, we had to monitor our company GUARD frequency. A vhf freq for our airline. We had to keep the volume up and the speaker selected. Modern ways should not have changed such simple precautions.
To clarify - the flight did not fly 80 minutes past KMSP. It flew 80 minutes or so without radio contact from the time it was handed off by Denver Center (i.e. over central Nebraska) until 150 miles (or 14 minutes) past KMSP (Eau Claire, Wisconsin or thereabouts).
MSNBC reports tonight that blood tests ruled out alcohol, and repeated the brief front-door interview with one of the pilots as reported above - also that CVR caught only last 30 minutes, and that the looping return was due to ATC, whi wanted to be sure the hands at the controls were fully awake and/or not also holding boxcutters.
Hearings coming up Monday.
MSNBC reports tonight that blood tests ruled out alcohol, and repeated the brief front-door interview with one of the pilots as reported above - also that CVR caught only last 30 minutes, and that the looping return was due to ATC, whi wanted to be sure the hands at the controls were fully awake and/or not also holding boxcutters.
Hearings coming up Monday.
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Flight 188's black boxes may contain evidence to resolve the mystery conclusively, but they may not. One key issue will be the recording capacity of the cockpit voice recorder, which records sound through several cockpit microphones. Some voice-recorder models can only record 30 minutes worth of data; if that is the case with the recorder on Flight 188, then it is possible the recorder will not tell the full story of what the pilots were up to during the 78 minutes they were out of touch with the ground. One theory already being discussed among experts is that perhaps the pilots fell asleep, and, upon awakening, and knowing that the voice recorder only had a 30 minute capacity, decided to fly around for a while so that the recorder would erase evidence of what went on. But more modern recorders can record up to two hours of sound, and if Flight 188 had such a recorder—which is not yet known—then this theory probably is invalid.
We'll see...
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Maybe all this automation has lulled flight crews into some sort of twilight zone. No more manual fuel transfers, no more manual throttle reductions, no more 'kicking' the INS, no more thinking outside the 'magic' box. "We don't have to learn that stuff anymore!" Is the battle cry it seems.
Its like today's new vehicles that do everything for you. Start it and aim it. Don't worry about backing up because there is a TV watching your rear. DVDs, CD players, cell phones, automatic backup capabilities, GPS and so on. Where are the driving skills learned? They are not. Same with today's push button planes? Don't know but what do I know.
Its like today's new vehicles that do everything for you. Start it and aim it. Don't worry about backing up because there is a TV watching your rear. DVDs, CD players, cell phones, automatic backup capabilities, GPS and so on. Where are the driving skills learned? They are not. Same with today's push button planes? Don't know but what do I know.
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Would something like this have been as likely to occur 50 years ago in the more demanding world of say a DC6/7?
Well, today at the rusty old farts' hangar as I call it, which is where a bunch of retired pilots get together to b.s. and work on airplanes that are older than they are, I asked each one of them if they had ever nodded off in the c/pit. Every one of them said they had. One even said he fell dead asleep and woke up wondering where the hell he was while flying the "North Star" which was a DC-4/6 hybrid, noted for its supercharged and very noisy Merlin engines.
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Stay awake, aviate, navigate, communicate.......
Well, Charles Lindbergh managed to stay awake for over 33 hours by flying low over the ocean and keeping his windows open.....and he had nobody to talk to.
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Actually, I seem to recall from his book that Lindbergh slept periodically (probably even more than he realized), but periodically woke up, and did so often enough to keep on course. When a person is really tired, they can doze off many times for substantial periods of time and never actually be aware of it. It might seem like you've been asleep for a total of only a few seconds, and in fact you might have been asleep for minutes or hours overall.
What I find interesting about this incident is that it's getting a lot of media coverage, whereas the nearly simultaneous problem with the Delta aircraft that landed on an active taxiway is being practically ignored. Given that landing on a taxiway presents a vastly larger risk of an accident with loss of life than just dozing off for a few minutes, I have to wonder exactly what motivates the media to cover one story but not another.
What I find interesting about this incident is that it's getting a lot of media coverage, whereas the nearly simultaneous problem with the Delta aircraft that landed on an active taxiway is being practically ignored. Given that landing on a taxiway presents a vastly larger risk of an accident with loss of life than just dozing off for a few minutes, I have to wonder exactly what motivates the media to cover one story but not another.