The good news is the pilots were not sleeping on Northwest Airlines flight 188 that missed Minneapolis by 150 miles. The bad news is they still missed the airport and the real reason is not enough to save their jobs.
* The Captain, 53 years old, was hired in 1985. His total flight time is about 20,000 hours, about 10,000 hours of A-320 time of which about 7,000 was as pilot in command.
* The First Officer, 54 years old, was hired in 1997. His total flight time is about 11,000 hours, and has about 5,000 hours on the A-320.
* Both pilots stated that they were not fatigued. They were both commuters, but they had a 19-hour layover in San Diego just prior to the incident flight. Both said they did not fall asleep or doze during the flight.
* Both said there was no heated argument.
* Both stated there was a distraction in the cockpit. The pilots said there was a concentrated period of discussion where they did not monitor the airplane or calls from ATC even though both stated they heard conversation on the radio. Also, neither pilot noticed messages that were sent by company dispatchers. They were discussing the new monthly crew flight scheduling system that was now in place as a result of the merger. The discussion began at cruise altitude.
* Each pilot accessed and used his personal laptop computer while they discussed the airline crew flight scheduling procedure. The first officer, who was more familiar with the procedure was providing instruction to the captain. The use of personal computers on the flight deck is prohibited by company policy.
* Neither pilot was aware of the airplane’s position until a flight attendant called about 5 minutes before they were scheduled to land and asked what was their estimated time of arrival (ETA). The captain said, at that point, he looked at his primary flight display for an ETA and realized that they had passed MSP. They made contact with ATC and were given vectors back to MSP.
* Both pilots said there are no procedures for the flight attendants to check on the pilots during flight.
It is against Northwest Airline’s policy for pilots to access laptops while in flight and these pilots have been doing their job long enough to know this. They had the radio on, but were engrossed in their conversation and laptops to notice people were concerned they lost contact and missed the airport. It is too bad that one incident like this will ruin these pilot’s careers, but with so many lives and Northwest Airline’s reputation at stake, there needs to be serious consequences for their actions.
UPDATE 4:33pm: Airline Biz Blog is reporting that Delta Air Lines (parent of Northwest Airlines) is stating the pilots will lose their jobs. The airline’s policy states that using laptops while in flight will lead to a pilot’s termination. Delta CEO Richard Anderson said: “Nothing is more important to Delta than safety. We are going to continue to cooperate fully with the NTSB and the FAA in their investigations.”
Some of these seats could have been free in Ryanair's promotion
On Oct 12th, the BBC aired a documentary called “Why Hate Ryanair?” The documentary heavily criticized the airline, saying they had no respect or dignity for pilots or cabin crew, that ’œpeople feel cheated by Ryanair’ and that its chief Michael O’Leary ’œis a bully’.
Ryanair strongly denies the claims and says they are all lies. To show how friendly RyanAir is, they gave away 100,000 free tickets for every lie that the documentary said (11 of them). After 1.1 million tickets were quickly taken, the airline gave out another 500,000.
The BBC stands by its documentary and I am sure that O’Leary and Ryanair is always happy to get any publicity (I actually think they prefer the negative kind).
Horizon Air's UW livery taken during the football game yesterday. Photo taken by Sam Al-Khoury, UW Seattle graduate and co-worker.
I am a proud graduate of the University of Washington (in Seattle, WA) and yesterday was their homecoming game against the Oregon Ducks (43 to 19, we lost, I don’t want to talk about that…). During the game, Horizon Air flew one of their Bombardier Q400’s over the field with a special UW livery. I would have loved to been there to see the flyover myself (and oh yea, the game too), but I was not able to. Luckily I made a call out to all my friends to take photos of the flyover for me. Had quite a few people come through with flying colors!
Dan Russo, vice president, Marketing and Communications for Horizon Air said, “This is one of the most ambitious promotions we’ve ever done. It will generate a lot of excitement around our partnerships with these schools and strengthen Horizon’s brand as ‘Wings of the Great Northwest.’ ”
The plane flying over the stadium. Done by Brice Hammack with HAM designs and UW Bothell graduate.
This is one of five current variants of collegiate liveries. The others include: Oregon, Oregon State, Washington State and, on Nov. 8, 2009, Boise State will join the fleet. I was a little upset to see that University of Washington had a prop and our rival Washington State University had a jet. However, Clint who works for Horizon Marketing told me, “We’re in the process of phasing out the jets and they will all be props once that is done. BSU will also be a prop,” which makes me feel a bit better! I think it looks better on the Q400 anyhow.
My team might have lost the game, but I think Horizon gained a great publicity idea!
Each week, Benet Wilson from AviationWeek posts some of the craziest aviation news out there. Here are three examples of the stories she found this week:
Drunk pilot, part one. Air India can’t seem to catch a break. First it had to deal with two pilots allegedly molesting a flight attendant. And now it has to deal with a pilot preparing to fly from Mumbai to New York failing a pre-flight breathalyzer test, reports The Australian.
Drunk pilots, part two. Pilots in India who show up drunk on the job usually don’t face serious penalties, reports India Today. A shortage of experienced pilots cause airlines to turn a blind eye to alcoholic infractions, it added.
I hope it was at least good beer! A 23 year old passenger on an Air Canada flight from Vancouver to Fort McMurray, Alberta, caused the flight to be diverted. Why? He had stolen a beer from the beverage cart and tried to hide the evidence by flushing the can down the toilet, reports The Standard. The flight diverted to Kelowna and arrived 75 minutes late.
Retro is so awesome. Southwest Airlines is well known for their sparkling personality, and it was no difference in the past! This video was created in 1986 as a reaction to the Chicago Bears’ Superbowl Shuffle. It was once featured on the CBS program 60mins and it was also used as an orientation tool for new hires. I really think they should do a re-make with their rapping flight attendant.
