The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is investigating an incident in which a Northwest Airlines A320 aircraft overflew its destination by approximately 150 miles. The two pilots attributed the incident to a loss of situational awareness due to engaging in a 'heated discussion', according to a press release issued by The NTSB.From the NTSB:
On Wednesday, October 21, 2009, at 5:56 pm mountain daylight time, an Airbus A320, N03274, operating as Northwest Airlines (NWA) flight 188, became a NORDO (no radio communications) flight at 37,000 feet.An article about the incident on the Wall Street Journal Web site suggested that the incident was "a possible case of pilots nodding off at the controls." Presumably an analysis of the CVR contents will clear up whether the pilots were indeed arguing, or whether the cockpit was silent during the period of no radio contact.
The flight was operating as a Part 121 flight from San Diego International Airport, San Diego, California (SAN) to MSP with 147 passengers and unknown number of crew.
At 7:58 pm central daylight time (CDT), the aircraft flew over the destination airport and continued northeast for approximately 150 miles. The MSP center controller reestablished communications with the crew at 8:14 pm and reportedly stated that the crew had become distracted and had overflown MSP, and requested to return to MSP.
According to the Federal Administration (FAA) the crew was interviewed by the FBI and airport police. The crew stated they were in a heated discussion over airline policy and they lost situational awareness. The Safety Board is scheduling an interview with the crew.
The cockpit voice recorder (CVR) and flight data recorder (FDR) have been secured and are being sent to the NTSB laboratory in Washington, DC.
UPDATE: The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) has issued a statement about actions they took regarding the "unresponsive aircraft".
Fighters from two North American Aerospace Defense Command sites were put on alert yesterday for a Northwest Airlines commercial airliner that was not responding to radio calls from the Federal Aviation Administration. Before the fighters could get airborne, FAA re-established communications with the pilots of the Northwest Airlines commercial airliner and subsequently, the NORAD fighters were ordered to stand down. NORAD does not discuss locations of alerts sites.
UPDATE Oct. 23, 2009: This could be bad news for the investigation of this incident: A new NTSB press release mentions, "The 30 minute solid-state Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) captured a portion of the flight that is being analyzed." If the portion of the flight that the CVR captured is the final 30 minutes, it may not be able to resolve what was happening on the flight deck (and what was not) during the period of radio silence.
Related:
- Northwest pilots who overflew Minneapolis tell NTSB they were engrossed, using laptops - AircrewBuzz.com, Oct. 26, 2009
- FAA revokes licenses of Northwest Airlines 'laptop pilots' - AircrewBuzz.com, Oct. 27, 2009
- Video parody of Northwest Flight 188: Tweetin' from a jet plane - ProPilotNews.com, Nov. 9, 2009
12 comments:
So, are you telling me that if I fly Northwest, I could end up landing somewhere else?
Order Meds - You can end up somewhere else regardless of which airline you fly. Planes sometimes do divert to alternate airports for various reasons. In this particular case, the aircraft landed where it was supposed to land -- it just did so later than it might have.
This is way worse than a plane landing late. This is the flight crew being TOTALLY UNRESPONSIVE until the flight attendant called them from the main cabin.
Is there any way this can be a good thing? Is there any way that this flight crew looks good?
I would like to know where this crew spent their evening before? In a bar all night. The reason I say that is because it appears the flight attendants were just as guilty. How long were they just gonna sit and do nothing until they ended up on the East Coast? There are step the flight attendants could have taken. I say union stunt or they had been partying heavy the night before. Regardless, these clowns should not have a job with that kind of responsibility, let them work at burger king or something.
Well this just goes to show you how good those highly paid pilots perform to transport the general public across the friendly skies. IMHO, I think they fell asleep and are covering up their rear end. Having flown NWA numerous times and as lately as July 2009 back to Minneapolis,, I can honestly say this airline company sucks. Do a google search of NWA poor customer service and you will be amazed at the number of sites that you will find regarding this subject. Even though Delta Air has bought NWA, the tarnished image NWA has will never go away. I feel sorry for the employees that have to deal with extremely poor upper level management and the poor CEO decisions just because the company has to make a profit - off of us the public. Guess that's why they call NWA "North Worst Air"
I am surprised that the ATCs (or dispatcher) have no radio access to the filght attendant's cabin, especially since the cockpit is now "sealed" from outsider. I'd think that after more than 10-15 minutes (or some reasonable number within arrival time) out of radio contact, both the ATC and Dispatcher should have alternate way of contacting the main cabin.
I agree, there is no excuse for their complacencey. However, in the defense of all airline pilots, they are being pushed to the maximum allowable flight time like never before. In this day in age it may not always be a late night out that causes one to be drousy in the cockpit. At 37,000 ft with the sun beaming in and a slight droan of the engines, any stressed, overworked employee could dose off.
Again, there is no excuse for it. However I would not say that it has anything to do with SWA, Delta, a late night out, or any manufacturing oversight that should have placed a radio in the cabin.
This is all puzzling. Most instruments pilots get nervous when there isn't much chatter from ATC. I know I do. Hypoxia seems like a plausible explanation...meaning they were in fact dozing. Alarm failure? It beats the laptop/heated-debate story? I assume NTSB will consider O2 issues.
As a retired Flight Engineer who used to fly INS equipped B747 Classic's I am wondering what happens on a FMS equipped A320 when it reaches the last waypoint of the programmed route.The B747, provided the A/P was coupled to the INS, would make a 180 and return to (the old) waypoint 1 unless the next waypoint down the route had been entered into this position.
Normally, an unexpected 180 turn woujd alert the crew to the fact that someting had to be done. But what will the FMS aircraft do? Just fly straight and level after passing the destination?
If there's someone out there who could tell me I would appreciate it.
What routing the aircraft flys depends on how the flight plan is loaded in the FMS. In many cases the last waypoint in the flight plan is simply a heading to fly after overflying a fix as you await radar vectors to the final approach for landing. If you are out of radio contact the aircraft may just fly the heading indefinitely until you give it a different input. Very hard to imagine being that distracted for that long.
From what I remember in my Air Force flying days on the C-141 as an air crew member, the last way point programmed into our INS was the landing destination. the waypoint loaded before the last was our starting decent position. The co-pilot (usually) contacted approach control for decent instructions just prior to the next to last waypoint unless others were loaded depending on where we were going. So,, bottom line is someone has to be paying attention to the instruments. Newer aircraft probably have more bells and whistles than the C-141-B model I was flying back in the mid 1990's.
It seems that Santa is also prone to becoming "distracted" while aviating. Oh dear...
http://juniorflyer.com/cgi-bin/sar-page.cgi?tf=tf1&pg=colour-xmas-view
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