Airliner crew flies 150 miles past airport

Been a busy day today.

Wonder what a heated airline policy discussion looks like that could
end up missing calls from ATC and spend 150 miles off course...?

Perhaps they were really just busy texting....

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TRAVEL/10/22...ef=mpstoryview

"Richard" wrote in message
...
Been a busy day today.

Wonder what a heated airline policy discussion looks like that could
end up missing calls from ATC and spend 150 miles off course...?

Perhaps they were really just busy texting....

I have a hard time texting over 13k feet.
they fell asleep. Im surprised this doesnt happen more often with small
aircraft. You engage that auto-pilot and its just so relaxing. Turn on the
xm tilt your head back and life is good, no one to bother you ask you for
things no you know what your daughter did or can you fix this or that. Nope,
just smooth flying across a beautiful country.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TRAVEL/10/22...ef=mpstoryview

On Oct 24, 8:35*pm, "Aluckyguess" wrote:
"Richard" wrote in message

I have a hard time texting over 13k feet.
they fell asleep. *Im surprised this doesnt happen more often with small
aircraft. You engage that auto-pilot and its just so relaxing. Turn on the
xm tilt your head back and life is good, no one to bother you ask you for
things no you know what your daughter did or can you fix this or that. Nope,
just smooth flying across a beautiful country.


I'm sure the specifics will emerge over time but I find it a bit
curious that there's no mention about even a possibility that the
A320's nav system may have experienced a glitch.

I stand to be corrected but on most pilots, the entire flight path is
entered into the FMS even before pushback, with amendments made along
the way as and when required by the ATC in respect of flight levels
and runway destination. I'd once been in the flight deck of an A320
and saw that the craft reached TOD and commenced descent uncommanded
and since on that flight there were no changes in the descent profile,
it virtually flew itself until the ILS was detected whereupon the
pilots kind of flew it manually.

You may recall that even the fated 737 Helios of a few years ago
reached Athens and kept flying a holding pattern until the fuel ran
out despite all on board having died much before then.

It beggars belief that an A320 could've flown on 100 miles past the
destination airport!

Ramapriya

On Oct 25, 8:13*am, D Ramapriya wrote:

Sorry, there were two typos - read "flights" for "pilots" and
"intercepted" for "detected"

Ramapriya

"D Ramapriya" wrote in message
...
On Oct 24, 8:35 pm, "Aluckyguess" wrote:
"Richard" wrote in message

I have a hard time texting over 13k feet.
they fell asleep. Im surprised this doesnt happen more often with small
aircraft. You engage that auto-pilot and its just so relaxing. Turn on the
xm tilt your head back and life is good, no one to bother you ask you for
things no you know what your daughter did or can you fix this or that.
Nope,
just smooth flying across a beautiful country.


I'm sure the specifics will emerge over time but I find it a bit
curious that there's no mention about even a possibility that the
A320's nav system may have experienced a glitch.

I stand to be corrected but on most pilots, the entire flight path is
entered into the FMS even before pushback, with amendments made along
the way as and when required by the ATC in respect of flight levels
and runway destination. I'd once been in the flight deck of an A320
and saw that the craft reached TOD and commenced descent uncommanded
and since on that flight there were no changes in the descent profile,
it virtually flew itself until the ILS was detected whereupon the
pilots kind of flew it manually.

You may recall that even the fated 737 Helios of a few years ago
reached Athens and kept flying a holding pattern until the fuel ran
out despite all on board having died much before then.

It beggars belief that an A320 could've flown on 100 miles past the
destination airport!

Ramapriya

The radios, did they fail and then start working again. The gps the pilots
should be tracking there position. Time they would of noted one heck of a
head wind.
Its common for pilots to take cat naps, just not at the same time. I
maintain they fell asleep. I hope im wrong for the pilots sake.

In article
,
D Ramapriya wrote:

On Oct 24, 8:35*pm, "Aluckyguess" wrote:
"Richard" wrote in message

I have a hard time texting over 13k feet.
they fell asleep. *Im surprised this doesnt happen more often with small
aircraft. You engage that auto-pilot and its just so relaxing. Turn on the
xm tilt your head back and life is good, no one to bother you ask you for
things no you know what your daughter did or can you fix this or that. Nope,
just smooth flying across a beautiful country.

I'm sure the specifics will emerge over time but I find it a bit
curious that there's no mention about even a possibility that the
A320's nav system may have experienced a glitch.

Occam's razor: it's simpler and more believable (at least to me) that
two pilots who were negligent enough to fall asleep (or whatever crazy
thing they did) were also negligent enough to screw up the nav system
set up, or at least leave it in a mode which required manual
intervention to continue to the next phase of flight.

--
Mike Ash
Radio Free Earth
Broadcasting from our climate-controlled studios deep inside the Moon

On Oct 26, 11:40*am, Mike Ash wrote:
In article
,
*D Ramapriya wrote:

On Oct 24, 8:35*pm, "Aluckyguess" wrote:
"Richard" wrote in message

I have a hard time texting over 13k feet.
they fell asleep. *Im surprised this doesnt happen more often with small
aircraft. You engage that auto-pilot and its just so relaxing. Turn on the
xm tilt your head back and life is good, no one to bother you ask you for
things no you know what your daughter did or can you fix this or that.. Nope,
just smooth flying across a beautiful country.

I'm sure the specifics will emerge over time but I find it a bit
curious that there's no mention about even a possibility that the
A320's nav system may have experienced a glitch.

Occam's razor: it's simpler and more believable (at least to me) that
two pilots who were negligent enough to fall asleep (or whatever crazy
thing they did) were also negligent enough to screw up the nav system
set up, or at least leave it in a mode which required manual
intervention to continue to the next phase of flight.


It's the accent upon the 100+ miles that gets me.
In a car world 100+ miles -is- a long way.
In an airliner at 400 knots that's 15 minutes.

In article
,
george wrote:

On Oct 26, 11:40*am, Mike Ash wrote:
In article
,
*D Ramapriya wrote:

On Oct 24, 8:35*pm, "Aluckyguess" wrote:
"Richard" wrote in message

I have a hard time texting over 13k feet.
they fell asleep. *Im surprised this doesnt happen more often with
small
aircraft. You engage that auto-pilot and its just so relaxing. Turn on
the
xm tilt your head back and life is good, no one to bother you ask you
for
things no you know what your daughter did or can you fix this or that.
Nope,
just smooth flying across a beautiful country.

I'm sure the specifics will emerge over time but I find it a bit
curious that there's no mention about even a possibility that the
A320's nav system may have experienced a glitch.

Occam's razor: it's simpler and more believable (at least to me) that
two pilots who were negligent enough to fall asleep (or whatever crazy
thing they did) were also negligent enough to screw up the nav system
set up, or at least leave it in a mode which required manual
intervention to continue to the next phase of flight.

It's the accent upon the 100+ miles that gets me.
In a car world 100+ miles -is- a long way.
In an airliner at 400 knots that's 15 minutes.

News companies are more interested in getting a story than actually
informing people. "150 miles" sounds scarier and gets more eyeballs than
"15 minutes", so that's what they print. It's sad, but I don't know how
to fix it.

--
Mike Ash
Radio Free Earth
Broadcasting from our climate-controlled studios deep inside the Moon

On 27 Oct, 00:01, george wrote:
On Oct 26, 11:40*am, Mike Ash wrote:

In article
,
*D Ramapriya wrote:

It's the accent upon the 100+ miles that gets me.
In a car world 100+ miles -is- a long way.
In an airliner at 400 knots that's 15 minutes.


I'm not a pilot but here are some quick calculations. With no tail or
head wind, the flight from SAN to MSP should've been a 3.5-hour, 1500-
mile journey. Assuming an hourly fuel burn of about 2.25 tons, they'd
have taken on about 8 tons plus an allowance for Wx en route and at
the destination in case of a divert.

I think that since the nearest alternative airport must've been some
way away (Rochester?), they'd have taken on board about 10 tons of
fuel. In flying past the destination for 150 miles, it'd have been a
20% extra journey by the time they landed back at MSP.

I'm not a pilot but I must beg to differ with you somewhat. A 300-mile
extra run on a scheduled 1500-mile journey doesn't sound as minor as
you're making it out to be. What if they'd encountered a stiff,
unexpected headwind enroute? It'd be interesting to note how close to
fumes they were when they actually landed.

Oh and another thing confirms my initial apprehension, that the pilots
were both on their laptops when all of this overflying happened (if
today's CNN newsitem is to be believed). It tells me that they were
taking it easy having keyed in the entire flight path into the FMS,
trusting the A320 to commence descent, etc., with something going
awfully amiss with either the FMS itself or the way data was entered
into it. Whatever the reason, the pilots' attention and focus do
appear to have been less than desirable.

Ramapriya