What happened to " Someone minding the store"?

Incredible!

What a fiasco
 

Where's the crusty Flight Engineer when you need him?

http://www.augk18.dsl.pipex.com/Smileys/leadcool.gif

This is yet another incident where it seems there must be more to the story.

NBC News had the story as the lead on Nightly News and stated that they were lost comm for over an hour and twenty minutes. I could see twenty minutes maybe but over the U.S. I just can't imagine that someone wasn't wondering why it was so quiet for that long.

Were these guys maybe watching a movie on a notebook computer with the sound plugged into the interphone with one of those homemade plugs? I've seen this act while jumpseating, I don't like it. Wonder if the CVR was mysteriously erased after landing? Most of them now record a couple of hours it seems.

I went lost comm in Yangoon's airspace for half an hour a while back. Other aircraft were also unable to contact the controller. Maybe they had a power failure, I don't know. I mused how lucky I was to be over some third world communist dictatorship (not that there's anything wrong with that :)) instead of the U.S. of A. where I might be shot down by now.

Over the U.S. post 9-11, we now monitor guard even domestically. At least we mean to. If you fly late at night over middle America you'll always hear a couple of FedEx freighters getting yelled at on 121.5 for calling ops. I assume there are some radios left on ops freq that should be on guard but I'm sure I've never done that myself.;)

Here's the NBC News link, hope it works after the 15 second commercial, some of these links seem to be user specific:

NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams: News and videos from the evening broadcast NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams: News and videos from the evening broadcast- msnbc.com

Don't Even Listen To Atc

What does the Airbus do when it reaches the end of the FMC route? Does it just switch to heading select & altitude hold & give an FMC message?

They must have really been involved in their 'discussion', or perhaps there is more to the story!

The A300 kicks off the AP, but on A320, if I remember correct, the autoflight system will switch to present heading, ALT HOLD and the speed will drop to green dot if managed spd selectet. And yes some FMC messages.

Probably asleep
 

My take on this is that these two puppies went to sleep. Then, on waking, decided that the "distraction due to intensive discussion" would do less harm to their careers than an asleep incident.

If the CVR can be used, and holds more than about an hour or two of data, then the FAA may be able to determine the actual facts.

Flynerd

What a disgrace! How can one (two) be so unaware?

And then this:

Wow, what an airforce... takes more than 80minutes before being able to get airborne... I`ll do 2 flights in an airliner, including turnaround in that time...

Shaking my head in disbelief...

Nic

Yep, the hundreds of U.S. pilots defending Europe would have launched sooner.

See: U.S. Air Forces in Europe - Library

Maybe we should have counted on the Germans to to defend the U.S. Thanks for sending your Airbuses to Texas every week.:}

I agree that Americans defending Europe sure beats the alternative...

NWA
 

The Cabin Attendant call from the cabin to the flight deck (not COCKpit at NWA) is the loudest in the industry. Quite often, one will have restate a transmisson to ATC when the attendant to flt deck call is activated.

I'm thinking the girls wanted know what was going on and called them, thus blasting them into alertness with Frenchie's idea of call alert.....but the CVR will tell all. ASAP's were being filed before the gear came down.

Once again the Toulouse Tree Trimer makes the news.

Likewise, the SELCAL chime in an A320 is pretty loud as well. How could they ignore the messages even if the radios were turned down?

ASAP's probably won't do much good because they are not single source reports of the incident. There was plenty of other coverage it seems.

Overshooting the Destination
 

It is possible that the Company and Pilots need a " Silent Cockpit " above 10,000ft. !

Tmb

Looks like we're all going to be having remedial CRM classes which is enough to send anyone to sleep!

Reserve
 

Assuming they loaded minimum fuel for the flight of approx 1300mn plus sufficient to divert to alternate and hold how much would be left on landing at MSP?

Though I very much doubt it, is there any possibility of fumes in the cockpit rendering our heroes unconscious ?

Other than that, well,,, even my little boat gives an audio and visual alarm for both waypoint arrival and radio selcall, and if the cabin crew were paying attention, why weren't they rather concerned by that time ?

If the thing had those little seat-back ' you are here ' displays, as an SLF I'd like to think I might have put my hand up, "errr..."

Remember lives would have been saved if someone, CC or SLF, had done so at Kegworth.

I'm surprised ( it seems ) fighters were not at least put up to have a look, try that on an alignment for Washington or Windsor and one might get a very rude awakening !

Though now technically DELTA, I would think that it was a former NORTHWEST crew.

Reports Inaccurate?
 

They only went about 100 nm past their destination.

It is likely they were only silent for 14 minutes, not 1:14....

This would explain why the air force did not have time to scramble.

I distinctly remember the times when NWA purchased Republic, and snobbed their disdainful noses at the "greenbooks", maybe some of their own fertilizer they spread is about to re-visit them from the "real" Delta pilots...

Hmmm. Lets see.... heated discussion about the three S's? Company Policy? I guess their discussion created so much heat in the cockpit that their PNDs went blank.

Not to worry.... these guys will find jobs at McDonalds, or Walmart, provided however, they don't oversleep the day of their interviews:ok:.

Good luck in your next endeavours.

Early evening is a strange time for 2 pilots to simultaneously fall asleep unless they had just come off an Eastbound long-haul that morning - in which case they wouldn't be flying again so soon.