MSP-bound airplane goes silent, overshoots airport

Certainly one of those "Oh Shit" moments.
Plane heading to Minny-St. Paul overshot the airport by 16 minutes while air traffic controllers et. al. tried to figure out what the fuck was going on. At one point, they were ready scramble fighters. Gotta wonder if the 147 people on board had any clue what was happening.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TRAVEL/10/23/airliner.fly.by/index.html

 

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. [/crew's response]

 

Now the airlines want to institute a policy in which pilot naps would be permitted during flight.

Hey, boys and girls, this isn't complicated. If I'm correct that federal law prohibits pilots from flying more than 100 hours in a month, that's an average of 23 hours and 15 minutes a week. If you can't stay awake for those 23 hours, go find something else to do.

Yeah, I know, these pilots are doing other things when they're not flying. That's fine; I don't care if you fall asleep in a classroom, in a simulator or while you're otherwise shuffling papers. You're putting no one at risk.

 

One pilot falling asleep? Sure.

Both?

Bullshit.

 

The flight path:

http://www.startribune.com/photos/?c=y&img=2flightpath.jpg

 

When this all comes out I will bet that it turns out the 2 pilots were arguing.

Delta and Northewest are merging, may be friction in the flight deck.

http://avherald.com/h?article=4219f00f&opt=0

The NTSB reported, that the crew told Air Traffic Control, that they had become distracted and had overflown Minneapolis and now requested to return.

The FAA reported, that according to post flight interviews the crew had engaged in a heated debate over airline policies and lost situational awareness.

 

Either that or "heated discussion over airline policy" is code for "getting hummers from flight attendants"

 

I'd say they were either sleeping or arguing.

Or maybe playing Farkle.

 

"Hey sweetheart, you forget the coffee!" [/good will hunting]

 

Not sure which is scarier - pilots sleeping through the flight, or pilots arguing to the point that for more than an hour they forget they're flying a plane.

 

Is their convo on cockpit voice recorder? How long before someone gets ahold of it?

 

I think the explanation is much simpler ...



"Tell your old man to drag Walton and Lanier up and down the court for 48 minutes."