The NW overflight, what REALLY happened

Well. An interesting story, but there's a stink of heavy, cheap perfume
around it.

If events occured as described here, why then did they not state the
facts immediately and lie that they had slept? And then later change
their story about being completely engrossed in their laptops.

I simply don't believe that "the NTSB official came over to Tim and said he
did not know why they even called them in for this event. There was no
safety issue." Oh, please. Sure as hell there was a safety issue, when
an airliner overflies its destination and is out of communication for
that long.

The Captain and F.O. were careless and sloppy. Period. They got a good
deal by merely having their licenses revoked. I don't think they should
be banned for life, but having to re-do all the training again from
ab-initio is perfectly fair for what they did to their passengers,
flight attendants, their fellow professional pilots, and the national
air control system.
--
Turn over the pages of history and read the damning record of the
church's opposition to every advance in every field of science.
~ Upton Sinclair

Bug Dout writes:

The Captain and F.O. were careless and sloppy. Period. They got a good
deal by merely having their licenses revoked. I don't think they should
be banned for life, but having to re-do all the training again from
ab-initio is perfectly fair for what they did to their passengers,
flight attendants, their fellow professional pilots, and the national
air control system.

Agreed.

Bug Dout wrote:
If events occured as described here, why then did they not state the
facts immediately and lie that they had slept?

What report said they claimed they had slept? All the news reports I saw
claimed the pilots said they weren't asleep at any time during the flight.

So the above appears to be at complete variance with the reports I've seen
- perhaps you have a different incident in mind?

And then later change
their story about being completely engrossed in their laptops.

I simply don't believe that "the NTSB official came over to Tim and
said he did not know why they even called them in for this event.
There was no safety issue." Oh, please. Sure as hell there was a
safety issue, when an airliner overflies its destination and is out of
communication for that long.

Actually the posting explicitly claims they didn't actually overfly their
destination - they at first thought they had. Radar records would indicate
whether this was true.

They may have flown past the fix they were last cleared to, but news
reports claimed they flew past their final destination.

The Captain and F.O. were careless and sloppy. Period. They got a
good deal by merely having their licenses revoked. I don't think they
should be banned for life, but having to re-do all the training again
from ab-initio is perfectly fair for what they did to their
passengers, flight attendants, their fellow professional pilots, and
the national air control system.

And Ming the Merciless would simply execute their trainers:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNUcpXKiNZo

Jim Logajan writes:

Actually the posting explicitly claims they didn't actually overfly their
destination - they at first thought they had. Radar records would indicate
whether this was true.

Here you go:

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/N...135Z/KSAN/KMSP

On Wed, 23 Dec 2009 20:39:00 +0100, Mxsmanic
wrote:

Jim Logajan writes:

Actually the posting explicitly claims they didn't actually overfly their
destination - they at first thought they had. Radar records would indicate
whether this was true.

Here you go:

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/N...135Z/KSAN/KMSP

Which makes the whole posting suspect; while a nice tale that attempts
to minimize the pilot's errors, I suspect it's just some creative
fiction; I doubt it was actually by someone "in the know"

Josh

Mxsmanic wrote:
Jim Logajan writes:

Actually the posting explicitly claims they didn't actually overfly
their destination - they at first thought they had. Radar records
would indicate whether this was true.

Here you go:

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/N...135Z/KSAN/KMSP

Thanks. According to the detailed tracklog,

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/N.../KMSP/tracklog

they were almost directly overhead MSP at 9:04 PM traveling ~604 MPH. The
tracklog shows a turnaround begin at 9:14 PM. If they did start checking their
location at around 9:04 to 9:06, then it seems likely they would have spent a
couple minutes first verifying their wayward location and then a few more
realizing and then correcting the frequency setting problem. Though
8 to 10 minutes to resolve those problem seems a tad on the long side,
though not improbable. So the e-mail's claim about when they became aware of
their lax navigation could indeed be true, just not verifiable or exculpatory
even if true.

Looks like the FAA has placed time-stamped transcripts and audio files here
that indicate they made contact with Minneapolis center at about 9:14:

http://www.faa.gov/data_research/acc...nt/2009-10-23/