<p>They say they were looking at flight schedules. </p>
<p>Does anyone here think they might have been here on C.C?</p>
<p>In case anyone reading this is a pilot in mid-air, here’s a reminder to check where you are :)</p>
<p>It brought to mind the metro link train crash here where the engineer was texting when he missed signal lights and killed a bunch of people. I am so glad it was brought to light, and hope that something can be done to prevent that from happening again.</p>
<p>seems odd to me that if they were “only” on their laptops (not sleeping as other experts have inferred) that they would miss text messages, alarm bells going off,etc.those must have been some intense websites they were using (sarcasm)</p>
<p>BS flagged raised here, unless they were on their laptops watching a movie with earplugs in their ears.</p>
<p>I have several friends that are pilots, and it doesn’t take an hour for them to book their schedule.</p>
<p>Agree with ^^. Why didn’t they respond to all the radio and cell calls from ATC? Sounds like they were asleep and are now fabricating.</p>
<p>According to news reports I heard, the airline they work for has already said its a firing offense for them to be on their laptops. The fact that they weren’t responding (the BOTH of them) to calls coming in to the cockpit suggest that they might lose their pilot licenses as well. Remember, planes were on the ground set to take off and intercept them. So if they truly were asleep, could the end result be much worse for them, at least in the short term? It doesn’t seem so.</p>
<p>My husband does some fairly sophisticated programming that is often done by freelancers. He was recently told that someone who programs the same systems is an airline pilot. Now we are wondering…is he programming while he is flying a plane?
Scary thought…when you are doing this programming you are way “in your head”…not necessarily aware of everything around you.</p>
<p>They had better fire both of these guys. I do not want them flying my plane!!!</p>
<p>so much for multitasking pilots…</p>
<p>Both pilots need to be fired! Then they will have plenty of free time to surf the job ads.</p>
<p>Luckily, no one was injured–though this incident does give a whole new meaning to the designation of the Midwest as “fly-over land.”</p>
<p>^^ Post of the Day!</p>
<p>Just when I think nothing can surprise me…this pilot screw-up boggles my mind.</p>
<p>When my children and I heard yesterday the pilots “claimed” to be on their laptops, we all said, what a pile of poop!! If they were going to make up a story, and they had days to do so, don’t you think they could have come up with something better? They each knew being on their laptops would get them fired, so why not just tell the truth at that point?</p>
<p>Personally I wonder if they weren’t sleeping, then they were doing something else that would be very embarrassing; like sleeping together, but not sleeping! Something very strange went on in that cockpit.</p>
<p>^^snowball, if that’s the case, we don’t want to know the details! :eek:</p>
<p>eww Snowball I hadn’t even thought of that!</p>
<p>Sorry for the visual! I just don’t understand what they are hiding; it has to be big. How do you just not be in contact for an hour? What kept them so occupied that they didn’t realize they had made no contact with the tower for so long and didn’t hear others radioing them or the flight attendant trying to get their attention.</p>
<p>Maybe Northwest knows the real story and the laptop store is for the public. I was baffled in the beginning when it was stated that they had not spoken with the pilot and would in a few days. Is there a reason no one interviewed them on the spot?</p>
<p>FAA has just revoked the licenses of both pilots:</p>
<p>[Pilots</a> of wayward jet lose licenses - CNN.com](<a href=“http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/10/27/airliner.fly.by/index.html]Pilots”>Pilots of wayward jet lose licenses - CNN.com)</p>
<p>Looks like their license has been revoked:
[FAA</a> Revokes Licenses Of NWA Pilots - Jacksonville News Story - WJXT Jacksonville](<a href=“http://www.news4jax.com/news/21441587/detail.html]FAA”>http://www.news4jax.com/news/21441587/detail.html)</p>
<p>Isn’t there an easy way to prove if they were on their laptops or not? If they were logged into a program to schedule trips, couldn’t that be traced? I think it would leave a trail. Regardless, I have absolutely no doubt that they were either arguing, or on their laptops. Unfortunately, it doesn’t leave much else left, other than sleeping, and snowball’s speculation.</p>
<p>WSJ details were not quite as bad as I had expected. Apparently one of the pilots took a bathroom break and an attendant was in the cockpit when ATC gave instructions to switch the radio to a different frequency…which was not heard, and not done. After that, with the radio monitoring the wrong frequency, tney heard occasional radio traffic, but none directed to them. </p>
<p>They did miss text-type messages apparently directed to them. Also, they had a tailwind and their airspeed was above normal, adding to the error. </p>
<p>The journal article sounds credible, and has a sense of being based on the investigation.</p>
<p>I don’t know what the right discipline is, but it seems to me that they weren’t asleep. Maybe that makes it worse.</p>