Seems like an awful long time to be "distracted," intense arguments or otherwise!Updated: 10/23/2009 12:02 AM KSTP.com
By: Michelle Knoll
Distracted Pilots Overfly the Twin Cities
FAA sources say Northwest Airlines flight 188 from San Diego to Minneapolis lost radio communication for over an hour Wednesday night.
The Airbus A-320, carry 147 passengers and crew, lost contact with controllers just before 7 p.m.
The National Transportation Safety Board says an hour later the plane flew over Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, and continued for 150 miles into Wisconsin.
The FAA notified the military, which put Air National Guard fighter jets on alert at two locations. As many as four planes could have been scrambled, but none ever took to the air.
"After FAA re-established communications, we pulled off," said Michael Kucharek, a North American Aerospace Defense Command spokesman.
Officials say controllers were able to reestablish contact with the plane at 8:14 p.m.
NTSB officials say the pilots told controllers they had gotten distracted and requested to return to Minneapolis-St. Paul International.
The plane landed safely after 9 p.m., about an hour and fifteen minutes later than it was scheduled to land.
Northwest Airlines originally told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS the delay was due to weather, but during a post-flight interview the NTSB says the pilots told federal authorities they were in a heated discussion over airline policy and were not aware of the situation.
A source familiar with the investigation who wasn't authorized to speak publicly said the pilots didn't become aware of their situation until a flight attendant contacted them through an intercom from the cabin to the cockpit,
The National Transportation Safety Board will be conducting it's own interviews.
They say the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder have been secured and are being sent to its lab in Washington, D.C.
The NTSB says right now it is looking into all possibilities, including pilot fatigue.
Thursday afternoon, Delta Airlines released a written statement saying, "The safety of our passengers and crew is our top priority. We are cooperating with the FAA and NTSB in their investigation as well as conducting our own internal investigation. The pilots have been relieved from active flying pending the completion of these investigations."
Passengers 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS talked with immediately after the plane landed said they were unaware of any problems onboard. No one was hurt.
Hm, this seems like a better story, or at least a bit more interesting one (and coincidentally, it uses a similar headline as my post's subject!):
What Happened To Flight 188?
Posted by Jane Akre
Friday, October 23, 2009 5:12 PM EST
The Missing 78 Minutes
We may never know what happened to Northwest Flight 188 because its outdated cockpit-voice recorder only has 30-minutes of memory.
What we do know is that the flight overshot its destination by 150 miles during which time air traffic controllers frantically tried to reach the crew.
The Airbus A320 departed from San Diego Wednesday evening on its way to Minneapolis.
Along the way was a 78-minute gap of silence during which time air-traffic controllers say they made repeated attempts to contact the crew.
They got no answer for 1 hour and 18 minutes.
Controllers became so concerned about the fate of the 140 people onboard Flight 188 that they asked pilots of aircraft in the area to see if they could get a response from the Northwest crew.
Authorities checked to see if there were any air marshals onboard.
Fearing the worst, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) even considered engaging fighter jets to intercept the twin-jet Airbus A320.
When the crew did resume communication with controllers the plane had to circle back, flying for about 50 minutes, until they landed safely in Minneapolis. There were no injuries reported.
So what happened?
The cockpit recorder may not tell the answer.
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that it’s likely only the tail end of the communication, after contact with air traffic controllers was re-established, would be recorded. That’s because the outdated cockpit recorder erases old conversations by recording over them in a 30-minute loop.
The leading theory by safety experts and investigators is that both pilots had the plane in autopilot cruising at 37,000 feet and fell asleep.
But both pilots have repeatedly insisted they were engaged in a heated discussion about company matters and just lost track of their location.
What’s perplexing is that conversations with the ground usually increases as a plane approaches its destination.
There are reportedly no bells or whistles to alert pilots they have passed their last flight market. But there would have been a message on the screen between the pilots that says “flight plan discontinuity.”
Northwest Airlines, now a unit of Delta, has suspended the pilots from flying and is investigating. A cooperative investigation is underway by the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) to find out what happened.
Pilot fatigue has been an issue in the news recently as airlines try to tighten their budgets, and pilots report they have quicker turn-arounds and are asked to work longer hours for less pay.
ABC News is reporting that many pilots have expressed anger over the routes they fly and seniority since the merging of Delta and Northwest.
On Monday, a crew that had flown a Delta Boeing 767 from Brazil landed on a taxiway in Atlanta’s Hartsfield International rather than a parallel runway. The crew had been flying all night.
The NTSB is investigating the role pilot fatigue may have played in that flight.
Airline Industry Resists Rest Time
Last year, the FAA imposed new rules that would require longer rest time and layovers for those commanding a nonstop flight of 16 hours. But that would require the airlines to hire more pilots.
Seven U.S. airlines are fighting new rules, suing the FAA and claiming that they were not consulted on the new rest rules imposed last October.
Pilots responding to one IB News story on pilot fatigue last month suggest adequate and comfortable rest facilities onboard the aircraft might help, as might 12 to 36-hour layovers so the body clock would not be disrupted.
