http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091024/ap_on_bi_ge/us_northwest_airport_overflown MINNEAPOLIS â The first officer of the Northwest Airlines jet that missed its destination by 150 miles says there was no disagreement in the cockpit, neither he nor the captain was napping and the passengers were never in any danger. But in an interview with The Associated Press two days after he and a colleague blew past their destination as air traffic controllers tried frantically to reach them, pilot Richard Cole would not say just what it was that led to them to forget to land Flight 188. ********************* Am I the only one who thinks they were having some sort of orgy in the cockpit? Were the flight attendants interviewed?
If there was an orgy in there, I hope it was with the female stewardesses and not the male "stewards" otherwise if would have TRULY been a "cockpit" :eek: :eek: :eek:
I'll be surprised if these guys careers aren't over. Losing radio contact with ATC is not uncommon. But it shouldn't lead to flying past your destination by 150 miles. In fact in the event of lost communications, they should have flown their last assigned route or their flight planned route, neither of which would have them fly that far past the airport. If the crew was conscious, they were severely distracted. As in paying almost no attention whatsoever to flying the plane. I don't know the details but at a typical cruise altitude and speed, not accounting for winds aloft, it would take about 20 minutes to cover 150 miles. I don't know which arrival they were supposed to be on but typically they would have started descending 20 - 30 minutes before landing. The implication here is that these guys were completely out of the loop and inattentive to their duties for at least 40 minutes.
According to Fox News: "The Northwest Airlines plane whose pilots flew past their destination by 150 miles had an older model cockpit voice recorder that only captures 30 minutes at a time, safety investigators said Friday." If the pilots knew this, they might have spent the last 30 minutes faking an argument (after they woke up).