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Northwest Airlines Pilots Miss Airport by 150 Miles For More Than an Hour.

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Two pilots of a Northwest Airlines flight Wednesday were apparently so distracted that they missed their airport and kept flying for 150 miles before landing the plane and its 147 passengers safely.

 

For one hour and 18 minutes, the pilots -- flying at 37,000 feet above sea level -- were radio silent as air traffic controllers at times tried to reach the cockpit, according to a news release from the National Transportation Safety Board.

 

As the event unfolded, concern was high among air traffic controllers, who repeatedly attempted to establish contact during the incident, using multiple methods, the air traffic controllers union told ABC News. Eventually, controllers asked other planes in the air to attempt to contact the Northwest plane, a method that the union said ultimately proved successful.

 

The pilots of the Airbus A320 told the FBI and airport police that they were in a heated discussion over airline policy and they lost awareness of the situation, the Federal Aviation Administration said. The NTSB plans to interview the crew and is reviewing the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder of the flight, Northwest 188 from San Diego to Minneapolis. The NTSB will be investigating whether the pilots fell asleep, along with all other possibilities.

 

"There wasn't any problem on board -- nothing," Andrea Allmon of San Diego told ABC affiliate KSTP. "We landed, everyone got ready to get off the plane and suddenly police were getting on the plane and telling us to sit down. They went into the cockpit, looked around and then told everyone to get off the plane."

 

 

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honestly, still cant figure it out. we're talking about 150miles and 1 hour ++ of discussion that totally isolate you from your surrounding. even if we put Mat Sabu & Khairy in the cockpit, I dont think those two gonna have that sort of discussion. anyways, out of curiosity, is it normal for pilot to sleep in the cockpit?

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Ridiculous... and it sounds like a big joke. I think they were BOTH asleep. How could other crew not went in and check the pilot after such long "delay"?

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Ridiculous... and it sounds like a big joke. I think they were BOTH asleep. How could other crew not went in and check the pilot after such long "delay"?

 

Other crews were also asleep then...

 

Wonder if the passengers enjoyed the extra ride... :-D Man, they could have run out of fuel...

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Similar incident happened to Vietnam Airlines B777 when both pilots of the jetliner fell asleep somewhere over Ukraine while doing FRA-SGN route...the Ukrainian Air Force pilots had to chase the aircraft after no response to the ATC...

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Time to check their flight duty period.

 

heated discussion over airline policy
and falling asleep could mean the same thing, if their fatigue is caused by airline policy that tried to save a few pence with crew scheduling and end up costing the airline many more pounds. (Hence the penny wise, pound foolish idiom).

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Similar incident happened to Vietnam Airlines B777 when both pilots of the jetliner fell asleep somewhere over Ukraine while doing FRA-SGN route...the Ukrainian Air Force pilots had to chase the aircraft after no response to the ATC...

 

Is this true? i thought the B777 has an alarm if it senses no activity by the crew for 45 minutes. The pilots gotta be dead to miss all the 'bells and whistles and klaxon' that the B777 will make.....

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Sorry, not Ukrainian Air Force, its the Czech Republic Air Force...and the route is Hanoi to Frankfurt...not Frankfurt to Saigon

 

From "Der Spiegel" online edition: (rough translation):

 

A story is just emerging as to how about 200 passengers on a Vietnam Airlines 777 flying from Hanoi to Frankfurt just narrowly escaped being shot down. According to "Viet Nam Net" the 777 was en route during the night of 17/18 April, using air space in Ukraine, Poland and the Czech Republic for over 65 minutes without any radio communications. As the plane deviated from the prescribed flight path, Czech authorities were prepared to shoot it down, according to "Viet Nam Net" online magazine.

 

Jan Pejsek of the Czech Ministry of Defence confirmed these events to Der Spiegel in principle. At 0545 on 18th April 2006, Czech Air Force personnel detected what to them was an unidentifable aircraft which had not communicated with Prague ATC. Considering the possibility that this could be an unfriendly military aircraft, two fighter jets were sent up to intercept the plane. However, the target turned out to be a Vietnamese civilian jet, and a few minutes after visual contact with the fighter jets, radio communications were established.

 

According to Vietnamese media reports, the fighter pilots were astonished to see that both pilots of the Vietnam Airlines plane were asleep. "They were asleep and had the plane flying on autopilot for one hour and five minutes", says "Viet Nam Net". There is neither confirmation or rejection of this from Czech authorities.

 

Whilst Vietnam Airlines have denied the report, the entire crew, including cabin crew has been suspended. (Apparently, there are standing orders for a cabin crew member to visit the cockpit every 15 minutes to establish that all is well up front).

 

The report goes on to describe various scandals that have shaken Vietnam Airlines, including the recent arrest of F/O Tran Van Dang at Sydney for trying to take out US$ 500,000 from Australia without declaring this money.

Edited by Alif A. F.

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Lost pilots 'were using laptops'

 

The two Northwest Airlines pilots whose plane overshot its destination by 150 miles on Wednesday say they were using their laptop computers.

 

The federal agency investigating the incident quoted the pilots as saying they had accessed their personal computers during the flight.

 

Contact with the Northwest Airlines jet was lost for more than an hour before it landed in Minneapolis.

 

The use of personal computers on the flight deck violates company policy.

 

Lost track

 

The National Transportation Safety Board released a statement on Monday after interviewing the two pilots separately on Sunday for more than five hours.

 

The agency said both pilots denied speculation that they had been tired or fallen asleep during the flight.

 

They said they "had lost track of time" as they discussed a new crew flight scheduling system and accessed their personal computers at the same time.

 

They admitted that during their discussion, they did not monitor calls from air traffic controllers, nor did they notice messages sent by company dispatchers.

 

They stated that they had been unaware of the plane's position until a flight attendant asked them about their estimated time of arrival five minutes prior to their scheduled landing.

 

It was only at this point, the captain said, that he became aware that his plane carrying 147 passengers from San Diego had overshot Minneapolis-St Paul International/Wold-Chamberlain Airport.

 

In total, the pilots were out of communication with air traffic controllers for more than an hour, sparking fears that their plane had been hijacked.

 

Fighter jets from the National Guard were put on alert to chase the airliner, although they did not take off.

 

Asked by air traffic control what was wrong, the pilots cited "cockpit distraction". They have been suspended.

 

The investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board continues, with the flight attendants scheduled to be interviewed later on Monday.

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8327073.stm

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Using laptops while flying the aircraft? Tsk Tsk <_>

 

Well, they were on FS with real-life weather and ATC feeding, just trying to see if the simulation is accurate enough, but being a simulator, there were some inaccuracies, and instead on relying on real life navigation and maneuver, they inadvertently relied on the simulator, and by the time they reached the point in the simulation where they were to contact ATC, they have missed airport by 150 miles for more than an hour...

 

Well, just an imagination... :D

Edited by Teoh Z Yao

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And here we joke of them logging on the company portal to check how their bids went - whether they get the trips they asked for! :D

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I thought this was interesting: You've heard of planes that vanished into thin air? Here's a truer, scarier story: On Oct. 21, 2009, two pilots flying from San Diego to Minneapolis vanished into cyberspace.

 

Flying Blind

 

The disappearance of Flight 188.

By William SaletanPosted Thursday, Dec. 17, 2009, at 7:52 AM ET

 

You've heard of planes that vanished into thin air? Here's a truer, scarier story: On Oct. 21, 2009, two pilots flying from San Diego to Minneapolis vanished into cyberspace.

 

Their plane was fine. Ground controllers tracked it the whole time. The passengers and flight attendants in the main cabin noticed nothing unusual. And the pilots' bodies stayed planted in their seats as though they were flying the aircraft. But they weren't flying it. Their minds had been sucked into a pair of laptops.

 

You can read the whole story in a report released yesterday by the National Transportation Safety Board. It's a portrait of the perils lurking in our matrix of cell phones, BlackBerrys, MP3 players, and video games. We're migrating out of the physical world—in this case, with 144 passengers onboard.

 

Northwest Airlines Flight 188 overshot its destination by 100 miles. According to the NTSB report, the pilots were drug-free and wide awake. Yet they failed to respond to air traffic controllers for an hour and 17 minutes. How could this happen?

 

The story begins with two portable computers. The captain had a gripe about his work schedule and wanted to fix it through the airline's scheduling system. The only way he could access the system was through his laptop. So he opened the laptop, right there in the cockpit. The first officer opened his own laptop and started to teach the captain how to work the software. Pretty soon, their thoughts had left the plane.

 

If this scene strikes you as insane, perhaps you're under the mistaken impression that pilots operate their planes. They don't. Computers operate the planes. Pilots mostly baby-sit them. The NTSB report explains how the captain programmed the Flight Management System, which then steered the plane via autopilot while the pilots checked out.

 

The pilots were supposed to send "position reports" informing the airline of their status while en route. But an airline dispatcher had told the captain not to send such reports because they were burdensome and unnecessary. The dispatcher explained that the airline's computers could track its planes perfectly well without human intervention.

 

In fact, ground computers did track the plane. They relayed warnings to the pilots and verified that the plane's computers had received these warnings. But the ground and airborne computers were talking only to each other. The pilots were out of the loop.

 

The warnings appeared as messages on the cockpit flight displays. Why didn't the pilots notice them? Because they weren't looking at the displays. They were looking at the laptops. In fact, the first officer told investigators that the pilot's laptop was blocking the flight displays. The captain said it wasn't, but he couldn't remember what was on the displays.

 

Didn't the pilots hear anything? Nope. When the autopilot reached its programmed endpoint near Minneapolis, it kept cruising along with no audible warning. The text messages from dispatchers on the ground were equally silent. Dispatchers tried to alert the pilots by chime or buzzer, but the plane lacked the requisite equipment. There were radios in the cockpits, but the ground controllers didn't know which frequency they were tuned to, and the pilots were so engrossed in the laptops that all they heard was "chatter." When your brain checks out, your eyes and ears follow.

 

What about the world outside the plane? Didn't the pilots see where they were going?

 

Actually, no. By the time they opened their laptops, it was dark outside, and clouds covered Minneapolis. They were flying blind.

 

OK, so they couldn't see and weren't watching their flight computers. But what about the other humans onboard? Didn't the flight attendants talk to the pilots?

 

Not much. Since 9/11, cockpits have been sealed to keep out hijackers. Pilots live in their own little world. The first officer told investigators that he and the captain "were only required to talk to the flight attendants before takeoff," according to the NTSB report. Once the laptops were open, the flight attendants didn't speak up till the plane was past its destination. That's when the pilots looked at their displays and realized where they were.

 

In his interview with investigators, the captain profusely apologized. He said he had "let another force come from the outside and distract me." But that isn't what happened on Flight 188. The force didn't come from outside. It came from inside. It enveloped the pilots' minds and shut down their senses. They lost touch with everything outside: their displays, the world beyond their windshield, the passengers behind the cockpit door.

 

And the pilots weren't distracted. They were impervious to distractions. They were completely focused on their laptops.

 

That's what worries me most about our journey into cyberspace. Going in may prove to be a lot easier than getting out.

 

Source: Slate

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