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On the Wall Street Journal home page as breaking news. No linked story yet . . .
Pilots of a Northwest Airlines flight approaching Minneapolis International Airport Wednesday night temporarily lost radio contact with air-traffic controllers and apparently overshot their destination by about 100 miles. The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the incident as a possible case of pilots nodding off at the controls, according to government and industry officials familiar with the matter. Controllers were able to re-establish contact with the Airbus A320, these people said, and the plane eventually landed safely without injuries. The plane was en route from San Diego to Minneapolis. Details are still emerging and the safety board is expected to release some information later Thursday. But based on preliminary indications, industry and government officials believe the crew may have briefly fallen asleep, flown past the airport, and then circled back to land. |
Pilots not sleeping - pilots arguing
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That's Fleet Number 3274 by the way, and not the reg.
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NTSB Advisory states:
NTSB Advisory National Transportation Safety Board Washington, DC 20594 October 22, 2009 NTSB INVESTIGATING FLIGHT THAT OVERFLEW INTENDED MINNEAPOLIS AIRPORT The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating an incident where an Airbus A320 overflew the Minneapolis-St Paul International/Wold-Chamberlain Airport (MSP). On Wednesday, October 21, 2009, at 5:56 pm mountain daylight time, an Airbus A320, N03274, operating as Northwest Airlines (NWA) flight 188, became a NORDO (no radio communications) flight at 37,000 feet. The flight was operating as a Part 121 flight from San Diego International Airport, San Diego, California (SAN) to MSP with 147 passengers and unknown number of crew. At 7:58 pm central daylight time (CDT), the aircraft flew over the destination airport and continued northeast for approximately 150 miles. The MSP center controller reestablished communications with the crew at 8:14 pm and reportedly stated that the crew had become distracted and had overflown MSP, and requested to return to MSP. According to the Federal Administration (FAA) the crew was interviewed by the FBI and airport police. The crew stated they were in a heated discussion over airline policy and they lost situational awareness. The Safety Board is scheduling an interview with the crew. The cockpit voice recorder (CVR) and flight data recorder (FDR) have been secured and are being sent to the NTSB laboratory in Washington, DC. David Lawrence, the Investigator-in-Charge, is leading the team of 3 in investigating the incident. Parties to the investigation are the FAA and Northwest Airlines. -30- NTSB Media Contact: Keith Holloway [email protected] (202) 314-6100 |
The crew stated they were in a heated discussion over airline policy and they lost situational awareness. FlightAware > Northwest Airlines Inc. #188 > 21-Oct-2009 > KSAN-KMSP Good thing they are in the union, else they would be in big trouble.:) I try to avoid these discussions in flight myself but some folks seem to want to bait you until you snap back at them. Some fisticuffs have already taken place at venues like Yankees bar in NRT from what I hear. |
That's about 100 NM past KMSP for a total extra of some 300 NM!
http://i337.photobucket.com/albums/n...8-21092009.jpg |
Some fisticuffs have already taken place at venues like Yankees bar in NRT from what I hear. IE: long ago, same/same.:rolleyes: NB. Knock down drag out fisticuffs with CX guys at...'The Truck'...a sight to behold.;) |
Why no military interception??
SLF here with one question: Why wasn't the plane intercepted by the military? Payne Stewart's plane failed to respond and jets were scrambled pre 9/11.
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I feel DELTA Airlines are being far to shy about taking credit for the behavior of a DELTA crew - or does that only work with the good news stories...
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...or does that only work with the good news stories... Next question?:rolleyes::ugh: |
So if the two of them were duking it out, the "proof in the pudding" will be the cockpit voice recorder.
Several years ago, an Amtrak crew got in a fight in a locomotive of a moving train ... the issue was one guy was a smoker and the other wasn't. There was no cockpit voice recorder to aid in the investigation however. Railroads are still in the dark ages in many respects. := http://kas.cuadra.com/star/images/nmb/02000SGK.pdf ONTPax |
This plane failed to respond to a call from Denver Center when it attempted a handoff to Minneapolis. It overflew MSP, its intended destination at FL 370, never making any attempt to descend. The Air Force had been contacted but apparently never scrambled. Over 100 miles after overflying MSP, ATC was finally able to contact them and get the plane turned around to MSP, where it landed over one hour late. All that I have stated above is verbatim from ABC news which featured this story prominently this evening.
This plane was out of contact with ATC for over an hour! Not good! The CVR will record the final 30 minutes if IIRC. So the alleged argument may not be recorded... perhaps any conversation to come up with a cover story may be recorded. It is hard to figure anything other than sleeping pilots as the cause of this "incident". Between this and the DL flight landing on the taxiway at ATL, it has not been a good couple of days for the DL/NW cockpit brethren. Again, the concentration should be on what we can collectively learn from this. |
last time I checked, the CVR was only to be used if the pilots were dead.
Simply put, there are some really great pilots, good pilots, lots of average pilots and a few stinkers. argue about things on the ground...fly the plane while you are in the air. can I say: dumbass? |
GRYHZE asked:
SLF here with one question: Why wasn't the plane intercepted by the military? Payne Stewart's plane failed to respond and jets were scrambled pre 9/11. "Fighters from two North American Aerospace Defense Command sites were put on alert yesterday for a Northwest Airlines commercial airliner that was not responding to radio calls from the Federal Aviation Administration. Before the fighters could get airborne, FAA re-established communications with the pilots of the Northwest Airlines commercial airliner and subsequently, the NORAD fighters were ordered to stand down. NORAD does not discuss locations of alerts sites." NORAD takes action for unresponsive aircraft |
FWIW:
Local TV weather map of USA shows a jet stream unusually aligned with a SAN - MSP routing. This might have hurried the trip along so much that the crew were not expecting such an early arrival. Not that this excuses the overflight, but hey, it's a theory... :ugh: Chicago Tribune has the story too. |
Maybe we should just set an alarm clock 30 minutes out of destination for these troubled times when so many pilots are venting about their management problems. It would also work if you happened to be asleep.
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This one gets the "nod" for more over-sensationalistic reporting
I heard about this on the six o'clock news; they just had to preface the story with "If you're a nervous flyer, this won't help......"
Yes, there was an incident in the skies between two pilots on one flight. How many other thousands of pilots on thousands of flights delivered thousands of those flyers "nervous" and otherwise safely to their destination yesterday, including the now-suspended pilots. Funny, the news never mentions anything about that. |
Honestly, I'd rather hope that they did fall asleep... not defensible, but it will put a spotlight on crew fatigue issues. The story of two pilots arguing on a flight over the US mainland to the point where they missed repeated communications for 1:14 and overflew their destination at FL370 and continued on for another 150 miles... sorry, but I find that far scarier scenario!
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How about another black-box?
Between this one and Delta landing on the taxiway it's making the profession look pathetic. |
Flight Status
The Northwest website indicates that flight NWA 188 on Wed 21 October was delayed in to MSP due to "Weather -- Air Traffic Control." This leaves serious concerns about the accuracy of such status statements. Everything gets blamed on Weather and ATC, eh? Nice try, Northwest/Delta. Whenever I see an airline blaming ATC for their service, this is good to remember
. ---- From NWA.com ---- FLIGHT: 188 STATUS: Arrived Departs: San Diego-Lindbergh Field, CA (SAN) Arrives: Minneapolis/St. Paul-Int'l, MN (MSP) Departure Date: October 21 Arrival Date: October 21 Scheduled: 2:20PM Scheduled: 8:01PM Actual: 2:41PM Actual: 9:15PM Gate: 41 Gate: G14 Aircraft: A320 Weather: MSP Get status notification for this flight > Note: Delayed due to weather-air traffic control. |
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