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- Tower Rental
Tales from the flight deck
Posted at 2:19 PM on October 22, 2009
by Bob Collins
(37 Comments)
Filed under: Northwest Airlines
This has not been a particularly good week for the public image of the nation's airline pilots. Earlier this week, a Delta 767 landed on a taxiway in Atlanta instead of a runway.
And a few moments ago, the National Transportation Safety Board issued a news release detailing a puzzling lapse by a Northwest Airlines flight crew over Minneapolis yesterday:
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.The plane landed around 9:15 last evening, more than an hour late. The pilot was all business by the time he called the tower for permission to land (liveATC.com):
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.
There are so many obvious safety violations here, it's hard to know where to start. But the biggest one is the lapse in what safety experts call "cockpit resource management." ideally, CRM is when the captain and first officer are working as a team to ensure the safe conclusion of a flight.
When a flight crew is having a "heated argument" that they miss their intended airport and keep flying, well, you're looking at the end of a couple of airline careers.
Let's review a few items from the Wayback Machine: Even a cockpit full of drunken pilots was able to hold it together and find the airport.
Here's what happens when there's a lack of proper crew resource management.
There are other questions, too, obviously. For example, if a airliner full of people suddenly goes silent, did any military jets scramble to intercept it? And if not, why not?
If you want to watch this play out on a forum for airline pilots, go here.
Update 5:01 p.m. - Bach Parker of St. Louis Park was on the flight. He was returning from a business trip to San Diego. Listen to the entire interview. He describes the scene as passengers were disembarking, noting that a case was removed from the cockpit and several "dark suits" were standing by.
Update 6:19 p.m. - On the question of whether there was a Department of Homeland Security response, this reply (by e-mail) from Kristin Lee, the assistant administrator in the Office of Strategic Communications & Public Affairs Transportation Security Administration:
TSA's Transportation Security Operations Center was aware of the issue and worked with our federal partners to monitor the situation.Another good reminder to me that when you're talking to the federal government, be very specific about what you want to know, such as "did you scramble any jets to intercept the aircraft?"
Update 6:36 p.m. The Associated Press reports:
The FAA notified the military, which put Air National Guard fighter jets on alert at two locations. As many as four planes could have been scrambled, but none ever took to the air. "After FAA re-established communications, we pulled off," said Michael Kucharek, a North American Aerospace Defense Command spokesman.Update 8:22 a.m. 10/23 - Here's my appearance with Cathy Wurzer on MPR's Morning Edition:
(h/t: Than Tibbetts, Ryan Mathre)
(Image: This is the radar track for the flight)
Comments (37)
I clearly have no idea how our air traffic control system works. Isn't it the controller's responsibility to coordinate with airplanes and get them landed? Wouldn't an MSP controller wonder why a plane flew over Minneapolis and kept going?
@Tyler: And how would the ATC do that without radio contact?
There are a series of "centers" in the country that handle air traffic. They then hand off to "approach" control which then hands off to the "tower."
It was "Minneapolis Center" that did try to reach the flight via radio without success. Eventually, the crew responded.
What happens if an airliner loses its radio under more normal circumstances?. There's a transponder code that an airline crew can enter (7600, I believe if memory serves), which instantly lights up the controller's radar screen. They would then turn toward the airport at which they intend to land and there are light gun signals in the tower (a combination of red and green blinking or steady lights) which would tell the pilot what the tower wants them to do.
That obviously wasn't a factor here.
This is scary. How in the world is this possible? How could an aircraft be out of contact for that long? I am flying a few times next week... not reassuring at all.
According to the map D.B. Cooper is now in WIsconsin.
So if the pilots have passed out, fallen asleep, or otherwise gone brain dead, the flight crew is helpless? Everyone is basically dead meat? Doesn't it work like "Airport" films where the stewardess takes over the controls?
I'm not buying the "fell asleep" angle that the Wall St. Journal seems to be pushing. And Bach Parker's observation that they removed a case from the cockpit (he didn't mention it was bright orange or yellow so I'm assuming its not the cockpit voice recorder, which I don't believe is in the cockpit anyway), tells me something much more serious was going on up there.
The story said it was Minneapolis Center that made contact with them although there are other ways to make contact. Systems called SELCAR or ACAR are high frequency radio transmissions that companies use.
Some model of jets also have an aural warning if there is no pilot input registered for a set period of time, although I do not know if that was the case with this particular aircraft.
But, yeah, IF you lose your entire flight crew, you're pretty well doomed unless someone can get into the cockpit and program an autopilot.
An airplane CAN land on autopilot.
Holy winged machines, Batman! Even with auto pilot they overshot? I would think a good GPS would've been screaming louder than the crew's heated argument?!
I don't know if they were on autopilot at the time. An autopilot is only going to take you where you programmed it to go. And a GPS only tells you where you are and should be. (and some flight information) but it doesn't have a function to say "pay attention."
There's still a significant part of human behavior that goes into flying a plane. That is also its chief problem.
This aircraft's autopilot (or any aircraft) won't start a descent profile by itself. And the aircraft won't be configured for landing without pilot input. So even though aircraft CAN land by themselves, 99% of the time it is flown by hand during landing.
The extended radio silence is concerning. If the flight had been in trouble, especially if it'd been hijacked and was headed somewhere to do harm, Minneapolis Center let the flight just wander along for what sounds like an extended period without scrambling the Air Force (or they're not telling).
The flight should have started its decent about 100 nautical miles SW of the Cities. To still be at 37,000 when overflying the airport should have caused considerable alarm.
Clearly the flight deck was totally out of control, I certainly hope these dudes are both fired AND have their licenses revoked. But I'm not too impressed by controllers either.
Add in the questionable heavy maintenance checks in El Salvador (as reported by NPR this week) and the Delta 767 landing on a taxiway, and you have a recipe for something baaaaad to happen.
Falling asleep sounds a lot more likely than a "heated argument" but either way the cockpit voice recorder will tell the story. That is likely to be what was in the case the suits removed from the plane.
This is scary and flat out an example that pilots don't get enough sleep. One of my neighbors is an airline pilot and he says that they routinely work up to 16 hours a day and the commonly get 4-5 hours of sleep a night!!
If it was just one set of pilots, sure, punish them. But this kind of stuff happens way too much, they need to change the rules to make it so pilots actually get adequate rest! I know I want the ones flying me around to be rested, these schedules should be illegal!!!
Cockpit voice recorder, CVR, is in the tail of the aircraft. And its orange.
It looks like they went 150 miles passed their destination so that is around 250 miles from the point they should have started their descent!
The Airbus is equipped with a navigation display in front of each pilot station. It's essential a map displaying the route, fixes, destination and other tools to keep situational awareness. To say they lost situational awareness in a "heated" discussion is hard to believe. Going past a certain point, computers go into a heading mode (since the plane doesn't know where to go without any pilot inputs) which alerts the crew. This is also hard to miss.
What happened looks more like a fatigue scenario. Pilots have long fought companies and the government to get more rest in between trips. It took Colgan's accident to draft a new set of duty rules for pilots. How long will it take to implement it? Will it take another incident or accident? It's time to get moving...
//That is likely to be what was in the case the suits removed from the plane.
Is that kept IN the cockpit? Why wouldn't that be stored near the tail?
The sleep angle is an interesting one -- although it seems to only be driven by Wall St. Journal speculation . If it's true that the pilots told the FBI that they were having a heated argument, that would mean that they concocted a heated argument story to cover up for the fact they were asleep, wouldn't it? Now, that's weird!
I'm not saying it happened and I'm not saying it didn't happen but not one but TWO pilots would fall asleep? And by the time they did, it was only a three hour flight. And it looks like they made a small course correction out around Red wood Falls.
It's also interesting that the AP is reporting that contact was reestablished around Eau Claire. But if you look at the sectional overlay of the route on FlightAware, the plane started turning back up around Hayward., then completed a turn way down around Thorp, and then flew back over Eau Claire., when they turned north.
So, assuming the AP account is correct, they were already trying to get back in the game without establishing radio contact, which seems an absolute impossibility to me. What pilot would ever do that? So would this be the computers in a "heading mode," Ben?
A very, very strange incident, indeed.
Jim, 16 hours a day! Is he/she a pilot with a regional or with a legacy carrier? The number seems high to me for a legacy. My ATP friends aren't working anywhere near those hours, though most of them are pretty senior, so that might make a difference.
Not to be cynical, but if I experienced a dual "inadvertent sleep event" in flight, I would make *darn* sure that I didn't land until the CVR 30-minute loop had been overwritten. With radio contact established at 2014, and landing at 2115, it looks like CRM for the final hour of the flight was EXCEPTIONALLY good.
I'm a ATP (and yes, regionals are a lot different than legacies in regards to duty length, but that is mostly due to segment length and the different type of flying regionals do) and the fatigue issue is a real one. Yesterday my inbound flight diverted and my crew and I ended up working a 15 hour day, and not one of us realized how tired we really were. The insidious nature of fatigue makes it very difficult to fully realize until its usually too late. It is common in this industry and needs to be addressed. And I think I'll wait to pass judgement on my fellow aviators until the facts come out.
I'm just a SEL pilot but my most embarrassing moment was turning left once when the tower said "make left traffic." A minute later, I'm heading for a runway , only it was at the wrong end.
I had nothing close to a 15 hour day. I'd walked 5 miles from downtown Sleepy Eye to the airport about a45 minutes before then and I was tired, and it almost killed me and someone else.
Is it THAT quiet in a cockpit, though, that two pilots can just sort of nod off? Did they intentionally close their eyes for a catnap figuring the other was flying? And is it considered less serious to be arguing and miss an airport than to fall asleep and miss it?
My heart goes out to those two pilots and their poor families. The public rarely hears about the grueling hours most professional pilots are put through-long days, short nights often spent in less than glamorous accomodations, for days at a time. It is apparent that these two men will probably never fly commercially again, after spending upwards of $100,000 on a pilot education and flight hours. It wouldn't surprise me if the FAA and/or Northwest/Delta came up with another story about why these two pilots missed their landing in MSP-it might highlight treatment of pilots that was discarded in most other countries years ago.
An interesting side note on corporate PR. I notice that most of the news stories refer to the airline as Northwest. I thought that the merged company was called Delta? Tying this story to a corporate name that is going away is a good move.
Officially, they're not one airline, kennedy. Northwest is owned by Delta, but it's still an airline in and of itself.
They're not yet operating under a single operating certificate. Operating strictly from memory, here, I don't believe they 're expected to get a single certificate of operation until the spring. Give or take.
We don't yet know what sort of day the pilots had, schedule-wise, rebecca.
There are only two flights into San Diego via Northwest that the two pilots could've come in on and worked the same-day flight to MSP -- one from Minneapolis and one from Memphis. Both departed around 9 a.m.
If they weren't flying either of those flights, then they stayed the night in San Diego.
Don't get me wrong, flying an airplane is no piece of cake. But lots of people go to work at 7:30 or 8 in the morning and don't fall asleep at their desks if they're still working at 7 p.m. (which would've been around the time they fell asleep over Kansas).
Of course, we don't know that they fell asleep. if it turns out that they did, they've got much bigger problems than their careers. They'll likely have criminal charges for lying to the FBI.
I agree that these two men should disclose the true nature of why they missed the mark on their landing, so to speak, but I have a hard time with Airlines/FAA always placing the error with the pilot. If FAA regulations were changed to show a modicum of concern for the well-being of commercial airline pilots some of these 'events' probably would never happen. It seems rather corrupt and unfair that the FAA/airlines never shoulder any responsiblity for unwise rest requirements and working conditions for flight crews.
I can buy the sleeping or the heated policy arguments. There is no argument that the two pilots did put their passengers lives at risk. Putting this in the past, what remains true is that nowadays pilots are overworked and underpaid. Both these will be determined to be contributing factors to the overshoot.
Pilots are the ultimate authority (and hence, ultimately responsible) for the safe conclusion of the flight and I know of no pilot who would want it any other way.
Pilots have to have the ability to say "no" to anyone who might force a decision upon them that affects their flight. If you take that away, you actually create a much MORE unsafe situation.
It's also true that because he/she is ultimately responsible, the most important question a pilot -- any pilot -- has is the one he/she needs to ask before takeoff "am I fully prepared to fly this plane?"
If the answer is "no," then you don't fly and while that might cause a problem with your boss, that's simply too bad. You -- and only you -- are responsible for the lives of 147 people.
This is a legacy carrier, a VERY heavily unionized legacy carrier where pilots tend to be very senior. And, sure, you hear a lot of grumbling about working conditions, but this isn't a regional carrier we're talking about here.
These two pilots obviously made a terrible mistake here, and I don't think anyone is disputing that-I would just like to see people show some compassion for these hardworking professionals who are rarely given the benefit of their perspective. These people are not robots-but are often expected to perform as if they were. I feel compassion for these two men-their professional futures as aviators are over. End of story. I also feel for their families-this must be a very difficult time for them. As for your comment about deciding not to fly the plane if they weren't prepared, it is lacking in any understanding of company policy and the underlying threat of employment termination. Anyone involved in aviation could tell you that job security nowadays is terrible for any pilot-unless you are airline management. And it doesn't really matter if you are working or a legacy airline or not-most commercial pilots work similar grueling hours.
A final comment on this-Airlines and FAA are quick to place blame and point fingers, but really, this does nothing to solve apparent problems with flying regulations, so why not make this experience, which thankfully hasn't ended in catastrophy, an opportunity to take a look at current practices and improve on them to ensure that things like this happen with far less frequency. I would love to see the 'people in charge' take a proactive approach to these matters instead of demonizing the pilots involved. I know in America we are big fans of scapegoats and red herring, but as Mr. Collins so aptly points out, people's lives are at risk.
This was leg one of the second day of their trip. They had just had a 19hr overnight in SAN. But that doesnt mean they can't be fatigued.
rebecca-- how do you know if they spent $100,000 for flight training? They could have for example been in the military and spend zero.
Bob--- You can't really compare sitting at a desk in an office for 12hrs and flying 12hrs a day. How do you feel after you have been driving for 12hrs? With flying its even more fatiguing because you can't simply pull over and take a nap.
Until there's an official conclusion for what exactly happened on this flight, I will try my best to refrain from speculations out of respect for my fellow pilots.
But I'd like to address and offer my opinion and passion about some of the issues and questions.
First off, Rest rules: NTSB(National Transportation Safety Board) has been after the FAA/Government to change the antiquated rest requirements for decades with virtually zero progress.
Here's a link for the current domestic operations flight time limitations:
http://rgl.faa.gov/Regulatory_and_Guidance_Library/rgFar.nsf/daa4c54debeb6dca86256f3400626ab0/0cd035f7648a95f8852566ef006d0b3d!OpenDocument
It is also worth noting that when the official "rest" has begun, the flight crew might still be at the airport on their way to the hotel van who may or may not show up for another 30+ minutes. Then there is a 5-30+ minute ride to the hotel, before you can finally check in and go to your room with more than an hour of your "rest" already used up.
Then; when it's time to go back to work, it happens all over again in reverse order.
By the way: it isn't unheard of that legacy carriers can also fly you to the limits of these regulations, although not as frequently as regionals.
These rules was written long before the words circadian rhythm was in our dictionaries.
Bob wrote "lots of people go to work at 7:30 or 8 in the morning and don't fall asleep at their desks if they're still working at 7 p.m.". That's all good, but what will happen if you now tell this group of people on Thursday that as soon as they clock out, they have to be back in nine hours to work another similar length shift?
By the way; if it's dark outside, the office lights will be dimmed just as it must be in the cockpit.
This kind of sleep schedule switcheroo happens to pilots in the US. thousands of times per week.
It is true and the airlines loves to use this argument: A pilot is obligated to take themselves of duty if they are fatigued.
Problem is that when they do this more than very rarely, they could get on the managements radar screen, which is a place you don’t want to be.
It has been reported that management intimidate pilots from doing this, believe it or not.
Here’s an example: http://www.ntsb.gov/publictn/2008/AAR0801.pdf
Page 61 bottom third.
And lastly when you call in fatigued, you often lose the income from that flight and given that the airline pilots have had around a 40% pay cut over the last few years, that would hurt the wallet.
When it comes to communication with the ATC (Air Traffic controller), there are times when they forget to transfer you to the next controller and you will unknowingly fly out of their radio range. So no matter how much they call on that frequency, you won’t hear them.
ATC will of course use other methods trying to reestablish contact such as other frequencies you might monitor or call your company and have them try to reach you through ACARS (Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System). But some ACARS’s can be very discreet with their notifications.
Average flight schools can run between $40,000 and $80,000 (for big name schools). Additionally, most pilots have to pay for around 1200 flight hours. This can add up to cost as much as, or more than their actual flight education. However, they could be military trained.
drive MD11/Airbus A320 pilots from MSP to the hotel and vice versa. These guys are tired, very tired... all the time.
They land the plane, 15 minutes or less they are in my car heading to the hotel. OFTEN they fall asleep BEFORE I reach 35W.
They ALWAYS talk about how tired they are. I've heard them talk about falling asleep in flight. Last week I heard: "If they let us sleep more, we wouldn't be dinging up and crashing so many planes."
Comforting isn't it?
I can see a pilot paying for around 300 hours but after that most civilian pilots flight instruct or have other jobs (traffic watch, pipeline patrol, sightseeing, etc.)
If someone actually paid for 1200 hours out of pocket they deserve to be broke.
Maybe that black box was a bomb that the pilots were trying to disarm it could explain having a heated discussion on airline policy an losing track of time an maybe they were in touch with the FBI or bomb squad personal about the situation the passenger said they kept in contact with everyone aboard the plane so that should rule out falling asleep in the cot pit . theirs plenty of speculation to go around this is just mind
We are fighting a war on terrosim and flight 188 is 11/2 hrs of course. Why were military jets not deployed to find out what was going on? 9/11 was not that long ago. Homeland security??????
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