Comments on: That’s scary! A postscript on Northwest’s “missed Minneapolis” problem

By: The Triathlon and Running Life of Nicole Blomgren: Started … | Fitness Health Wisdom

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 03:24:34 +0000

[...] That's scary! A postscript on Northwest's “missed Minneapolis” problem [...]

By: Al in So CA

Al in So CA — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 22:28:38 +0000

Pilots using laptops in the cockpit are as bad as engineers using cellphones to text on commuter trains. Does anyone remember what happened in CA on 9/12/08? 25 people died and 135 people were injured in that Metrolink accident. Pilots should be concentrating on flying the plane. Period.

By: Ed

Ed — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 19:16:05 +0000

I have a question. Can they not verify if they were working on the laptops by listening to the cockpit voice recorder? If they were awake there would be some conversation in that 91 min. period, I would think.

By: That's scary! A postscript on Northwest's “missed Minneapolis” problem | Minneapolis update today

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 15:52:19 +0000

[...] Nobody died, nobody was injured. A form wasn’t modify damaged. Here is the original: That's scary! A notation on Northwest's “missed Minneapolis” problem Posted in Travel, Uncategorized | Tags: a-perfect-distracting, balloon-boy, delta, [...]

By: Matthew in NYC

Matthew in NYC — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 15:42:00 +0000

I’m inclined to agree with the idea that the flight attendants have to have a role in ensuring that pilots remain alert. They should be required to log cockpit announcements or other actions from the cockpit, and if there hasn’t been one for a specified period (e.g. thirty minutes for a short-haul, sixty for a long haul) they should be required to speak to the pilot in charge and record that in their log. It wouldn’t be a bad idea if ATC could contact the purser independently of the cockpit if they think something is wrong – most planes seem have satellite phones for the passengers, surely there could be one for ATC to call the purser.

By: dernhbayer

dernhbayer — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 15:04:20 +0000

Food for thought, “What if it had been something more serious involving the pilots’ health, instead of just major brain cramps?”

What if ALL personnel in the cockpit is out? Can the ground contact the flight attendants (FAs)? Do planes have “On-Star” that can unlock the door so someone else can land the aluminum tube???

Only in America.

By: Joe

Joe — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 14:17:08 +0000

Yeah, yeah, but it’s not as if they missed New York or Paris. Crikey, it was Minneapolis.

By: brian from nodebtworldtravel.com

brian from nodebtworldtravel.com — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 13:34:34 +0000

I was convinced these guys were asleep. But I think that them being at their laptops is even worse. They were wide awake when all this happened! Is a scheduling program that they were supposedly looking at all that engrossing to make them miss an AIRPORT?

They should grab those laptops if they were company issued and see if that is what they were really doing.

We should be lucky this didn’t happen but…why weren’t fighter planes scrambled to intercept? After 30 minutes and a plane is not reachable by multiple means (they even had other planes in the air trying to reach them) I think you need to raise the alarm.

They should lose their licenses for being easily distracted.