If they were truly working on their computers then it should be no problem for the pilots to access the history from the computers proving they were indeed working on their computers. My source tells me they were asked by investigators but the pilots refused to volunteer this.

I'm terribly disappointed they are refusing to man up on this. Blaming the controllers is just lame. Someone mentioned they got the wrong freq. and were somehow sent to Winnipeg Center. First the tapes showed the pilots did check in with Denver Center. It was only when the controller (who established comm. with the flight 20 min earlier) tried to send them on to the next sector is when they failed to respond. Second, Winnipeg Center's airspace is about 700 miles north of Denver Center's. Actually Salt Lake Center lies between the two. I doubt the controller would even know any of the freqs. from Winnipeg. Northwest also sent a dozen ACARS messages to the plane. The records show the plane received the messages. Also there is no evidence showing the pilots made any inputs to the aircraft during this time.

What were they doing? Zzzzzzzzzz

cabinflyer wrote:If they were truly working on their computers then it should be no problem for the pilots to access the history from the computers proving they were indeed working on their computers. My source tells me they were asked by investigators but the pilots refused to volunteer this.

I'm terribly disappointed they are refusing to man up on this. Blaming the controllers is just lame. Someone mentioned they got the wrong freq. and were somehow sent to Winnipeg Center. First the tapes showed the pilots did check in with Denver Center. It was only when the controller (who established comm. with the flight 20 min earlier) tried to send them on to the next sector is when they failed to respond. Second, Winnipeg Center's airspace is about 700 miles north of Denver Center's. Actually Salt Lake Center lies between the two. I doubt the controller would even know any of the freqs. from Winnipeg. Northwest also sent a dozen ACARS messages to the plane. The records show the plane received the messages. Also there is no evidence showing the pilots made any inputs to the aircraft during this time.

What were they doing? Zzzzzzzzzz

According the the FAA's public statements....your source is wrong. The FAA stated, in the newspapers, that they had no need to access the pilot's laptops as the pilots had already admitted using them while in flight. Thus....no reason to seek evidence of an activity which had already been admitted. Guilt by admission.

The pilots had a 19 hour layover prior to flight. Their flight time to MSP was only 3+hours. Both guys falling asleep under those conditions is unlikely to the extreme. Say nothing of the fact that falling asleep would have saved their careers and been the smartest "excuse" possible.

Bob

Bob

Take the email for what it's worth but these two geniuses just blamed ATC for the fact they didn't talk to anyone for 800 miles and forgot to land.

z3skybolt wrote:
The pilots had a 19 hour layover prior to flight. Their flight time to MSP was only 3+hours. Both guys falling asleep under those conditions is unlikely to the extreme. Say nothing of the fact that falling asleep would have saved their careers and been the smartest "excuse" possible.

Bob

Bob

First of all, I'm not doubting anyone here.........

But do we know what these pilots were doing during there 19 hours of off duty time? Were they surfing the waves of the San Diego beaches all day? Golfing? Chasing them hot California women? etc?? Who knows?? But if they were active all day before there flight (and there's plenty of fun stuff to do in San Diego), chances are, they could have been tired. It would be interesting to know exactly there schedule from the last 7 days before that flight to Minneapolis. Including what they did in there off time (I know, none of my damn business!!).

But I'll admit, I've been off duty for more than 24 hours (none of your damn business what I was doing in my off time! )(maybe I was investigating some property for sale in Mina, NV ) before having to hit the road in the rig and getting 2-3 hours into my trip and finding myself looking for a place to park the rig to take a nap. Little different situation, but same scenario.

I'm going with this scenario (I don't know the real names)..........

"Hey Joe?"
"What's up, John?"
"You mind if I take a 15 minute nap?"
"No...go ahead, John, I'll watch over things".........
10 minutes later.......this is what Joe's doing, "ZZzzzzzzzzzzz!!"
Now we have two pilots taking a nice little nap!

But hey, I could be wrong!

Damn.......I just realized I'm being a naysayer ( , to myself)

My first caveat here is I don't no squat about flying an airliner for a living! or being an ATC . But the scenario in the email sounds plausible. Even perfect me has put the radio on the wrong frequency. When you hear chatter but your listening is honed on to your call sign that is what it is chatter especially when you think you are on the right frequency. Obviously they dropped the ball but if your flight speed is 600kts + with a tail wind of 130 kts it takes less than 10 min to to cover the ground they did in the overshoot. They admitted they were on laptops having a discussion about how to submit for time for one pilot to be with his son going into the Army.. How many times have you been on a laptop showing or being shown how to and realize that a lot of time has passed.
As for the blaming ATC it wasn't the pilots who claimed the ATC shift change inadvertently overlooked the hand off to the new ATC on the status of this flight. This is second hand from the WSJ. so ??? where did the WSJ get this info? or did they make it up like the media so often does?
Did the pilots make a mistake? Yes definietly. Should their careers be ruined? I don't think so.
Maybe it shouldn't surprise me but I would think that other professionals Pilots/ ATC would give these guys the benefit of the doubt instead of piling on when in reality when all we have is speculation, media reports that should always be taken with a grain of salt.

Green Hornet wrote:My first caveat here is I don't no squat about flying an airliner for a living! or being an ATC . But the scenario in the email sounds plausible. Even perfect me has put the radio on the wrong frequency. When you hear chatter but your listening is honed on to your call sign that is what it is chatter especially when you think you are on the right frequency. Obviously they dropped the ball but if your flight speed is 600kts + with a tail wind of 130 kts it takes less than 10 min to to cover the ground they did in the overshoot. They admitted they were on laptops having a discussion about how to submit for time for one pilot to be with his son going into the Army.. How many times have you been on a laptop showing or being shown how to and realize that a lot of time has passed.
As for the blaming ATC it wasn't the pilots who claimed the ATC shift change inadvertently overlooked the hand off to the new ATC on the status of this flight. This is second hand from the WSJ. so ??? where did the WSJ get this info? or did they make it up like the media so often does?
Did the pilots make a mistake? Yes definietly. Should their careers be ruined? I don't think so.
Maybe it shouldn't surprise me but I would think that other professionals Pilots/ ATC would give these guys the benefit of the doubt instead of piling on when in reality when all we have is speculation, media reports that should always be taken with a grain of salt.

I've seen it from both ends of the mike. First off there's no airliner up there doing 600 knots True. 400-450 is the norm. It is relatively rare to see aircraft passing over head here on the radar with a ground speed over 500 knots. Pilots switch to the wrong freq all the time, usually because they copy the new freq wrong, but occasionally because the controller gives them the wrong one. In either case the end result is the same. Pilot cannot contact next ATC facility on the freq he dialed up so he goes back to the last one for a clarification. So these guys changed to a wrong freq and then never checked in. The story is they were on a Canadian center freq. I don't buy that because they were hundreds of miles south of the border and God knows how many more miles south of the Canadian ATC facility. No way did they hear Canadian controllers and only very possibly did they hear aircraft worked by them. If they were actually listening they would have heard the name of the ATC facility as other aircraft checked in. Clearly they weren't listening, the radio was, at best, background noise. Aircraft also get away from ATC everyday by flying out of radio range. That is one of the reasons all airliners monitor 121.5. Monitor it yourself and you will hear ATC and other A/C trying to contact the lost sheep and get them on the right freq.
Even assuming these guys flew out of range of the last ATC freq and weren't monitoring 121.5(against NWA policy) where was that little clock that runs in a pilots brain that says hey, I should be doing something right now? Every controller and pilot has that little clock. You don't fly 600 miles, not change ATC freqs and don't wonder what the deal is. There's no such thing as an ATC shift change as described above. Any given controller gets a break every hour or two. It is not relevant if the new controller just came to work or has been there most of the day. Either way he has no idea of the traffic situation until he is told it by the controller he is relieving. So assuming worst case and the new controller isn't told that NWA188 was on his freq so he then flies out of radio range the next controller down the line will call up that controller and ask him to send him over. This happens everyday too. Then ATC will do all the things we do to get that guy back on the radio. Have other A/C call him on both old and new freqs as well as 121.5. These were all done. All professional pilots as well as ATC knows what happened here is so far outside the norm that basically we just sit here and say to these guys "Dude..."

Bonanza Man wrote: "Dude..."

Is that sort of language aloud on this forum? We are not discussing skateboards. BM knows better than that.

Tim

qmdv wrote:

Bonanza Man wrote: "Dude..."

Is that sort of language aloud on this forum? We are not discussing skateboards. BM knows better than that.

Tim

I thought it started with cowboys, which are right up your alley.

600kts ground speed....

....of course it happens. A B-727 at Mach 90 and a 200 kts tailwind...you'll be doing a lot more than 600 kts across the ground. Been there,done that..... groundspeed in excess of 660 kts going east bound with the jetstream providing a smoking tailwind.

Have also gone west bound in a B-767 at Mach 84...making only 240 kts across the ground.

Now....... about the time that I flew a Citabria backward across the ground, over Owensboro, Kentucky....80 Kt. headwind at 9,000 ft. Just throttled back and watched the world in reverse. Wind....the great equalizer.

bob

z3skybolt wrote:Now....... about the time that I flew a Citabria backward across the ground, over Owensboro, Kentucky....80 Kt. headwind at 9,000 ft. Just throttled back and watched the world in reverse. Wind....the great equalizer.

bob

Sorry in advance for getting a little off topic.

But I was fishing at a lake in Shelton, CT on a pretty windy day (not too windy in the protective cove we were fishing in, though) about 8 years ago. I started to hear what at first sounded like a helicopter hovering over head for about 10-15 minutes. I finally looked up and had to take a double look. It was a fixed wing, single engine plane damn near setting still! I swear it was a good 15-20 minutes before he finally disappeared.

Bonanza Man wrote:
Even assuming these guys flew out of range of the last ATC freq and weren't monitoring 121.5(against NWA policy) where was that little clock that runs in a pilots brain that says hey, I should be doing something right now? Every controller and pilot has that little clock. You don't fly 600 miles, not change ATC freqs and don't wonder what the deal is. There's no such thing as an ATC shift change as described above. Any given controller gets a break every hour or two. It is not relevant if the new controller just came to work or has been there most of the day. Either way he has no idea of the traffic situation until he is told it by the controller he is relieving. So assuming worst case and the new controller isn't told that NWA188 was on his freq so he then flies out of radio range the next controller down the line will call up that controller and ask him to send him over. This happens everyday too. Then ATC will do all the things we do to get that guy back on the radio. Have other A/C call him on both old and new freqs as well as 121.5. These were all done. All professional pilots as well as ATC knows what happened here is so far outside the norm that basically we just sit here and say to these guys "Dude..."

BM,
I know you are an ATC and know much more than I about the subject. But Bob - Skybolt is a Pro Pilot and he mooted your airspeed comment. I will restate that the email was written by a neighbor possibly a non pilot so some of what he is reporting needs to be filtered. But he did admit that the ATC issue was reported by WSJ and not the pilots. So lets say that accusation is in question and the ATC's are not in any fault and that never happened.
Your other points are also based on your knowledge and I am certain the these scenarios happen everyday to other pilots that could have done the same thing these guys did but got lucky. I think you are right in that the radio for less than 14 min became " background noise" while they got lost in a tutorial on a web page. This would negate all the radio scenarios you have illustrated. They were not on the right frequency. Was this wrong? absolutely! Should they be written up? yes! suspended, OK! Fined OK!
As for the clock in their heads it went off but about 14 min late. appox. Their crime is something every pilot is taught not to let happen but takes a tremendous amount of discipline even for someone who flies once a week. They got Distracted! and that is the lesson to be learned and reminded of constantly.
I'm still on they side of the fence that believes these guys deserve a second chance. Hell politicians make mistakes that cause people to actually die every day but they don't get blackballed to oblivion nor does anyone believe their story ! How many air disasters occurred because of lack of funding? We know how many people died on 911 because the warnings were ignored and politicians placed walls between agencies. Yet not one politician has been held accountable! These guys got lucky because no one got hurt! and most important they had no intention of hurting anyone for self interest! To be ostracized for what might have happened is cruel and not productive.

I didn't say groundspeeds don't hit 600 knots, I said it's not normal. Mid-upper 400's is what you see, day in, day out on eastbound airliners. Maybe low 500's when the wind is screaming on some winter days. The ATC issue came from the pilots themselves, not unexpected, the government gets blamed for everything. Getting distracted is one thing but they were nowhere near the 14 minutes you stated. They were unreachable for an hour and 17 minutes and only then because the flight attendant got their attention. That little clock never went off. I have no idea what the right punishment is, not my call. But everybody in the business knows going in that if something like that happens it won't be good for you.

The up side to these guys getting canned is that a couple of guys that have worked their way from privet to cfi to flying rubber dog shit in some sort of twin to exec pilot etc etc will now be able to live their dream.

How about let the buyer get to vote. Poll all frequent flyers and see if they are comfortable flying with these guys. I had a plumber working for me and after a while a couple of general contractors that I worked for asked if I could send him someplace else. So I did.

Darwinism comes to mind.

Tim

A question out of curiosity. Should a Bureaucrat be FIRED for the Christmas day Fruit of the KABOOM bomber keeping his Visa after his father made the US embassy aware of his ideology? or the fact that he purchased his ticket with cash, one way, with no luggage checked?
So far it does not appear this will happen. Even though the bomb was set off that caused a fire sitting over the main fuel cell and to the fuel cell in the left wing.
It took less than a week to pull the tickets of the pilots in question of the Northwest miss of airport. Even though Napolitano said the system worked and then walked it back the next day and the POTUS called it an isolated extremest action with no mention of Alqaeda? How different it is when the shoe is on the other foot!

Come on, you know the answer. Here is an easy case for you to follow.

About 4 years ago, the local piss furs did a controle burn at the foot of Mt Shasta. I am not questioning the necessity of it just when they did it. They started the burn early in the week and by Friday they did not have enough burned. Every pilot knew that if you were going to do local flying you had better get it done by Friday or early Saturday cus a cold front was coming.

When a cold front heads this way, we get a realy strong wind from the south. Well we all knew this but for some reason the piss furs did not. Well they kept burning and Sunday morning it really started to blow. Burned down a house, several out buildings and a bit of timber.

If I had done that, I would pay supression fees and if sombody dies I go to jail. Nothing happens to piss fur willie.

Gov employees, no matter how crappy of job they do, they have no consequence.

Tim

qmdv wrote:Come on, you know the answer.

Gov employees, no matter how crappy of job they do, they have no consequence.

Tim

So Tim your expectations are to hold the pilots accountable for the human life in their charge but your expectations are that Government bureaucrats will not be held accountable ( per the POTUS) for a bigger 'Screw up" ? because that is the way it is? It seems expectations are a "Self fulfilling Accountability".