Pilots overshoot MSP. Whoops!

October 23, 2009 9:50 AM

Were they arguing? Were they asleep? It's not clear yet why two pilots overflew the Minneapolis airport by 150 miles before turning around in Wisconsin. What is known is that they dropped radio contact over Kansas, that Air Force fighters were put on alert, and that, according to MN Public radio, passengers saw cops and stern-looking men in suits waiting on the jetway when they were finally allowed off the plane. MSP alt-weekly City Pages aggregates info about the flight as it comes in, and discussion on local sites is spirited.
posted by COBRA! (74 comments total)

Were they chasing a UFO-shaped balloon of some sort?
posted by mikepop at 9:53 AM on October 23, 2009 [1 favorite]

...the crew told the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the airport police that “they were in a heated discussion over airline policy and they lost situational awareness...

“That’s 250 miles worth of distraction," Mr. Mann said, or the equivalent of about an hour in the cockpit.

Wow. If that's true, these guys are out of a job (I hope). If they fell asleep, I hope either they are out of a job or airline pilot duty rules are changed, depending on how long they'd been awake.
posted by DU at 9:59 AM on October 23, 2009

Mr. Mann was skeptical about the explanation that the pilots were involved in a discussion. "What kind of a discussion would be that animated that they would miss a descent 150 miles out and then overfly the airport by 100 miles?” he said.

um, have you ever heard of the public option?
posted by found missing at 10:00 AM on October 23, 2009 [14 favorites]

According to FAA officials, Cockpit Cat was not co-operating with the investigation.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 10:01 AM on October 23, 2009 [3 favorites]

Six bucks and my right nut says we're not landing in Minneapolis.
posted by Dr-Baa at 10:03 AM on October 23, 2009 [2 favorites]

I knew they should've taken that left turn at Albuquerque.
posted by tzikeh at 10:05 AM on October 23, 2009 [5 favorites]

Duuuuude...wasn't that...like....the airport?
Whoaaaa...totally spaced it, dude.
Duuude....
Dude...help me turn this thing around, k?
K.
posted by Thorzdad at 10:05 AM on October 23, 2009

Dude, where's my airport, Thorzdad?
posted by bitter-girl.com at 10:06 AM on October 23, 2009

Even if they were on the wrong frequency and didn't hear ATC trying to contact them, ATC without a doubt tried to reach them on the emergency frequency that all aircraft have tuned in at all times.

My bet is that they were asleep.
posted by matty at 10:14 AM on October 23, 2009

I knew a commercial pilot (for United) back in the late 80s -- he was a friend of a friend. Once we went out drinking with my friend, this pilot, his co-pilot, and our various and sundry girlfriends.

These pilots drank several drinks before pushing away from the table at 11 to go fly. OK, it was the 80s. But they also told me it was *routine* that they would fall asleep at the switch on autopilot on late night/redeye flights, and the specific phrase I remember from that evening was "we overshot Chicago by 200 miles."

Take it for what it's worth.
posted by fourcheesemac at 10:14 AM on October 23, 2009 [4 favorites]

And did you read about the plane that landed on the taxiway instead of the runway at ATL this week?
posted by matty at 10:15 AM on October 23, 2009

How hard would it be to have a camera in the cockpit streaming audio and video back to the ground at all times? As someone who flies fairly regularly I'd like to know that someone is keeping an eye on the cockpit.
posted by mullingitover at 10:23 AM on October 23, 2009

If this just ends up being some viral promotion for the final season of Lost, I won't be too surprised.
posted by jabberjaw at 10:29 AM on October 23, 2009 [10 favorites]

How hard would it be to have a camera in the cockpit streaming audio and video back to the ground at all times? As someone who flies fairly regularly I'd like to know that someone is keeping an eye on the cockpit.

Not hard technically. Practically, the pilot's association would make it as difficult as possible.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 10:31 AM on October 23, 2009

From what I've read about this, the passengers didn't notice anything was amiss. I'm trying to imagine how none of the 144 people on the plane realized they were supposed to have landed an hour ago.
posted by EarBucket at 10:32 AM on October 23, 2009 [2 favorites]

The amazing thing to me is that they flew straight into Wisconsin and didn't notice. As a Minneapolitan, I find this deeply offensive.
posted by Astro Zombie at 10:33 AM on October 23, 2009 [9 favorites]

1. Proceed to NASA ASRS.
2. Click Text > Click Here > put in asleep > uncheck Narrative > check Synopsis > Save.
3. Click Run Search.
4. View All Reports or export them. Oodles of stories about falling asleep in the cockpit. Apparently this kind of thing is endemic.
posted by crapmatic at 10:38 AM on October 23, 2009 [8 favorites]

They did it for the show.
posted by grounded at 10:40 AM on October 23, 2009 [5 favorites]

1a. Click Start Search.
posted by crapmatic at 10:41 AM on October 23, 2009

I have this obsessive tendancy to start my stopwatch when the wheels lift, especially if it's a flight I do often. So, I would've noticed the delay. Would I have said anything to a FA? Probably not.
posted by These Premises Are Alarmed at 10:46 AM on October 23, 2009

How hard would it be to have a camera in the cockpit streaming audio and video back to the ground at all times? As someone who flies fairly regularly I'd like to know that someone is keeping an eye on the cockpit.

Also a camera on the ground to make sure that guy is watching to make sure the pilots are awake. But then no more cameras, because that should be exactly enough.
posted by DU at 10:49 AM on October 23, 2009 [3 favorites]

Perhaps "heated discussion" is code for "two pilots welcoming each other to the mile high club"?

Glad I was landing in Humphrey Terminal on Wednesday night. Last thing I needed was another delay.
posted by caution live frogs at 10:49 AM on October 23, 2009 [1 favorite]

I guess I picked the wrong week to stop doing lutefisk.
posted by gimonca at 10:50 AM on October 23, 2009 [4 favorites]

Perhaps "heated discussion" is code for "two pilots welcoming each other to the mile high club"?

But they lost contact over Kansas! Aren't there blue laws down there?
posted by COBRA! at 10:51 AM on October 23, 2009

Pilot: "Wow, I hope we don't have a crash."

Co-pilot: "They say it's safer than crossing the street."

Pilot: "But we have to do that, too!"
posted by mr_crash_davis mark II: Jazz Odyssey at 10:53 AM on October 23, 2009 [1 favorite]

How hard would it be to have a camera in the cockpit streaming audio and video back to the ground at all times? As someone who flies fairly regularly I'd like to know that someone is keeping an eye on the cockpit.

How many thousands of flights are in the air at a given time? Who's watching all those monitors? Who's watching those people to make sure they don't fall asleep watching hours of nothing happening in cockpits?

I'm thinking a better technical solution would be those beeper devices that long-haul truckers wear.
posted by Mid at 10:53 AM on October 23, 2009

My bet is that they were asleep.

I agree. If not asleep from commuting halfway across the country to work for peanuts, the discussion of company policy (that supposedly distracted the pilots from their duties) would surely be soporific.

I'm surprised the airliner was not intercepted. Around here (specifically, within 30 miles of Washington DC's National Airport), if a two-seat Cessna strayes a few miles off course, military aircraft are launched promptly. Never mind that when a general aviation plane did crash into the White House, the repairs involved little more than a can of white paint.
posted by exogenous at 10:54 AM on October 23, 2009 [2 favorites]

No, this will end up being a promotion for a big-budget remake of The Langoliers.

SCAMPER TO THEATERS TODAY!
posted by adipocere at 10:58 AM on October 23, 2009 [2 favorites]

I wouldn't be terribly surprised if they were asleep. Think of a typical, uneventful flight - the pilots start up the airplane, put their whole flight plan in the FMS computers, take off, and then switch on the autopilot. The most you have to do after that is change the com radios when you get handed off to another controller. There's this old adage about flying - "hours of boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror."

Especially if you're sick/overworked/hungover/whatever, it's pretty easy to let yourself nod off. Especially with the low rumble from the engines and the Dutch roll gently rocking you like a kid in a cradle.
posted by backseatpilot at 11:15 AM on October 23, 2009

Christ it's Northwest, what do people expect? Competency? hah
posted by edgeways at 11:20 AM on October 23, 2009 [2 favorites]

As a frequent flyer you begin to blow off extra long flight times. You figure they're circling due to ground delays, or diverted to a different runway and coming in on a different approach. You just keep reading your book, chewing your gum and shifting in your seat, in which you are wearing the armrests snuggly around your hips.

I may not notice that we drifted from a major city to the vast cornfields of Canada.

I'd be annoyed to discover that the pilots were confortably asleep when I got DVT from sitting folded for a couple of hours though.
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 11:24 AM on October 23, 2009 [1 favorite]

More from MPR's Bob Collins.
posted by COBRA! at 11:38 AM on October 23, 2009

And did you read about the plane that landed on the taxiway instead of the runway at ATL this week?

ATL is sort of infamous for this -- east-west runways, five parallel, and associated taxiways. Taxiway L, M and N look a lot like the runway if you're dealing with glare from a rising or setting sun.

SEA (pdf, airport diagram) has a similar problem, they've had a number of planes land on Taxiway T, rather than runway 16R/34L (now 16C/34C.) SEA's problem was the layout, which had the two runways next to each other, with the taxiway outside, not the conventional runway-taxiway-runway of most other airports. It's hoped that the new runway -- which is well out to the west -- will help people with the confusion.
posted by eriko at 11:40 AM on October 23, 2009

The amazing thing to me is that they flew straight into Wisconsin and didn't notice.

We've turned off our air-defense grid. We've decided to engage you guys on the ground now; we figure it offers us a better chance of catching, tranquilizing, and tagging you.

Because you're easier to study when you're sluggish.

Speaking of, have another beer and cheese-brat.
posted by quin at 11:47 AM on October 23, 2009 [2 favorites]

I overfly NYT links and don't turn around.
posted by Antidisestablishmentarianist at 11:50 AM on October 23, 2009 [2 favorites]

ATL is sort of infamous for this -- east-west runways, five parallel, and associated taxiways. Taxiway L, M and N look a lot like the runway if you're dealing with glare from a rising or setting sun.

Concur... although runways have bright white lights at 6:05 in the morning (when the incident occurred), and taxiways have blue lights. In addition, even though it was an international flight, it was a DELTA flight. As we all know, ATL is Delta's hub. It just makes it all that more bizarre. I don't know what approach configuration they were running that day/time though...
posted by matty at 11:50 AM on October 23, 2009

From COBRA!'s link.

"A silent jetliner is heading toward a major American city and the military didn't intercept it. Why not? The threat the situation posed was demonstrated clearly on 9/11."

No, no, no, no, NO NO NO.

There is a *huge* difference between a jet flying at FL370 and making no turns, and a jet flying at 1600' AGL and making turns. The plane at FL370 *could* be a threat, but first, it needs to get much lower.

They probably would have scrambled jets if it hadn't started answering, but rushing to scramble jets isn't the right answer -- and if I wanted to fly a hijacked plane into a building in Mipple-Stipple, the best thing I could do is to actually follow the correct descent profile for landing, which would get me close to the city at low altitude.

Flying at FL370 with no turns and no comms is *not* an attack profile for anything short of a strategic bomber, and since this was A320, not a Tu-95, we're pretty sure that it wasn't carrying nuclear weapons (and if it was, it would have dropped them *well* before you could have reacted if it got to 100 miles from MSP with no reaction whatsoever.)

This plane flew *NW* from MSP. The "threat" here was if it ran out of gas an fell on someone. So panicking because we didn't fling up a few dozen F-16s is stupid.

Indeed, *not* scrambling those jets (which is far from cheap) is one of the few truly smart calls made in this incidet, and MPR's Bob Collins needs to STFU and chill.
posted by eriko at 11:51 AM on October 23, 2009 [16 favorites]

I'm guessing that eriko is either a pilot or has spent a metric assload of time on Flight Simulator.
posted by Halloween Jack at 11:57 AM on October 23, 2009 [3 favorites]

Concur... although runways have bright white lights at 6:05 in the morning (when the incident occurred), and taxiways have blue lights.

Yeah, but in the glare, esp. after a long international flight, those runway lights can be surprisingly dim, and the taxiway lights are always dim. However, checking, sunrise at ATL is very late this time of year -- 0745ish, so it would have been close to full dark at 0605.

There's only two configurations at ATL, really -- Go West (depart and land the 26s/27s/28) or Go East (Depart and Land on the 10/9s/8s). Landing was 27R, so they were landing to the West -- so not only was it dark, the sun would have been behind them.
posted by eriko at 11:58 AM on October 23, 2009

Here's the RNAV to 27R at ATL.

Here's the ILS to 27R.

If he was shooting the ILS, maybe his needles were off a little?

The terminal is inbetween the two parallel runways.

Here's the airport diagram.

Runway width is 150, but the taxiway ain't NEAR that wide if I recall. I find it almost unbelievable that at that time of day aircraft weren't all over Taxiway M, seeing how it's so close to the terminal. Sure it's the feeder line to L, but still seems odd to me.
posted by matty at 12:13 PM on October 23, 2009

We've decided to engage you guys on the ground now

You can't stop Adrian Peterson, you can only hope to contain him! All day, baby!
posted by kirkaracha at 12:20 PM on October 23, 2009 [4 favorites]

wow, I'm so glad to know I'm not the only one who immediately thought they were doin' it.
posted by nowoutside at 12:24 PM on October 23, 2009 [2 favorites]

Flying at FL370 with no turns and no comms is *not* an attack profile for anything short of a strategic bomber, and since this was A320, not a Tu-95, we're pretty sure that it wasn't carrying nuclear weapons

I like to think that in the annals of Cold War paranoia there was a surprise attack that fits just this profile; passenger jets seemingly astray over North America actually carrying a full invasion force and somewhere, deep in NORAD, when these pilots fell asleep a long-forgotten COBOL pattern matching program came to life, put us on defcon 2 and brought us the closest we've ever been to nuclear war since the Cuban missle crisis.
posted by geoff. at 12:26 PM on October 23, 2009 [1 favorite]

Pshaw -- they were distracted by their discussion of gladiator movies.
posted by ericb at 12:33 PM on October 23, 2009

Nah, the inflight meal was a plate of beans.
posted by felix betachat at 12:35 PM on October 23, 2009

And did you read about the plane that landed on the taxiway instead of the runway at ATL this week? ...it was a DELTA flight...

Christ it's Northwest, what do people expect? Competency? hah

And Delta owns Northwest Airlines. I can only imagine the discussions happening at corporate right now.
posted by ericb at 12:37 PM on October 23, 2009

Clearly one of them was recounting stories about the time he was in a Turkish prison.
posted by kiltedtaco at 12:43 PM on October 23, 2009

Maybe they were discussing how little they get paid or were tired from holding down two jobs.
posted by HP LaserJet P10006 at 2:03 PM on October 23, 2009

Wait, Minneapolis? They had to dump the bongwater before landing.
posted by HP LaserJet P10006 at 2:33 PM on October 23, 2009

"From what I've read about this, the passengers didn't notice anything was amiss. I'm trying to imagine how none of the 144 people on the plane realized they were supposed to have landed an hour ago."

Passengers are just inured to constant delays. It's a little more surprising that the Flight attendants didn't make a fuss but maybe they have no way of contacting the ground now that they are shut out of the cockpit.
posted by Mitheral at 2:36 PM on October 23, 2009

Wire this to a radio broadcast. "Attention: We are napping. Shhhhh!"
posted by user92371 at 2:37 PM on October 23, 2009

I can't wait to see Patrick Smith's column next week.
posted by subbes at 4:27 PM on October 23, 2009

Maybe they were still counting the votes?

More seriously, eriko is a smart guy who knows a lot about aviation and spaceflight as well as nuclear weapons the Cold War and I enjoy seeing his contributions on these topics that I always like to learn more about.

I hear eh doesn't afraid of anything, either.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 4:51 PM on October 23, 2009 [1 favorite]

If he was shooting the ILS, maybe his needles were off a little?

He's bought himself a hug can of FAIL if he was watching the needles that long. 27R is a Cat I ILS approach only -- Decision Height is 200', RVR > 1800'. At that point, you're required to go around if you can't see the runway.

So, yeah, the needles may have had him wrong at DH -- but if couldn't see the runway, he needed to go around, if he could, he should have landed on it.

It's pretty clear that the Pilot Flying just landed on the taxiway. I could understand it at sunrise, flying into the sun, basically, you're trying to pick the right white rectangle out of the murk (even worse on a typical ATL summer day with the haze) but this was more than an hour before sunset, and he missed the big rectangle with all the white lights in favor of a thin stripe surrounded by tiny blue lights, sort of.

This breaks the fundamental rule : Do Not Create More Paperwork.
posted by eriko at 5:31 PM on October 23, 2009 [1 favorite]

Aviate, Navigate, Communicate. In that order.

Whoops.
posted by matty at 5:45 PM on October 23, 2009 [1 favorite]

Ah, Minneapolis and Northwest. Once, on the first leg of my flight from Chicago to Tokyo, as the plane was close enough to the ground that you could make out makes of cars, the pilot gunned the engine, and we were suddenly climbing again, and going into a nice, wide turn (though at an angle I've never experienced on a plan. More like a roller coaster). A little bit later, after the moments of terror had passed, I guess, the pilot comes on the intercom and tells us will be circling around for another approach. Then he mentions that the tower forgot to tell him about the plane on the ground, currently taking off from the runway we were about to land on. Fun times.
posted by Ghidorah at 6:20 PM on October 23, 2009

Well, since the cockpit voice recorders are being reviewed (and those can hear every grunt and snore), I'd just wait until the findings are released. The pilots would have to be complete ignoramuses to lie about the "heated discussion" unless there's something else more bizarre going on here that the media isn't being apprised of.
posted by Burhanistan at 6:29 PM on October 23, 2009

Aviate, Navigate, Communicate.

That's a much better phrase than the one I heard. "First fly the fucking plane, then figure out where the fuck you're flying it to..."
posted by eriko at 6:35 PM on October 23, 2009 [1 favorite]

Hmm, it seems this plane had an older voice recorder that only captures 30 minutes then records over itself. That's kind of a paltry amount of time, especially since nowadays a $50 handheld recorder can capture 24 hours or more.
posted by Burhanistan at 6:51 PM on October 23, 2009

So, maybe something odd went down in the cockpit and the pilots decides to fly out the time to overwrite the evidence?
posted by Burhanistan at 6:53 PM on October 23, 2009 [2 favorites]

There are a lot of laid-off pilots out there that would be glad to have these two jobs. Whatever their story is (video: "nobody was asleep in the cockpit, no arguments took place"), unless there was some kind of emergency I can't imagine an excuse for missing what were surely a shitload of radio calls on various frequencies.

Here's their FlightAware track.

Speaking of stupid pilot tricks, this bozo damn near kills himself and his poor passengers by flying in the clouds without even a tenth of a clue.
posted by exogenous at 7:27 PM on October 23, 2009 [1 favorite]

Ghidorah: "the tower forgot to tell him about the plane on the ground, currently taking off from the runway we were about to land on. Fun times."

To be fair, a runway is long - it was most likely an aborted landing because the spacing wasn't right according to mandated minimums, rather than an imminent collision (e.g. the other plane was just turning onto the taxiway after landing as you touched down on the other end of the runway). These things usually sound more dramatic than they are.
posted by subbes at 7:37 PM on October 23, 2009

As I understand it, a plane that decompressed might fly along at 34,000 feet with no turns and no communication. That's a lot scarier than a napping pilot.
posted by Mid at 8:04 PM on October 23, 2009

"...maybe something odd went down in the cockpit and the pilots decides to fly out the time to overwrite the evidence."

This, I like.
posted by mr_crash_davis mark II: Jazz Odyssey at 8:13 PM on October 23, 2009

subbes, we never actually touched down, and evidently the other plane was indeed on the runway. Sudden acceleration, reversing from descent to climbing, and banking in a passenger plane at an angle that I'd never experienced, it actually sounds just about dramatic as it was.
posted by Ghidorah at 9:13 PM on October 23, 2009

It's called a go-around: this column may help explain it in more detail. Mostly go-arounds are because of "a minor spacing issue," though they feel damn dramatic and poor communication to passengers from the deck doesn't help.

I'm a nervous flyer and Patrick Smith's columns have helped me immensely by explaining things like this (though I now prefer to avoid regionals because of the way they treat flight crew).
posted by subbes at 10:31 PM on October 23, 2009

Burhanistan: "So, maybe something odd went down in the cockpit and the pilots decides to fly out the time to overwrite the evidence?"

It's kind of an interesting theory, but it's not like the contents of cockpit voice recorders are routinely dumped on landing. If they had just landed on time and not drawn attention to themselves, the activity they were trying to cover up—whatever it might have been—would have gotten written over quickly anyway. (When do the recorders shut off and stop taping, or do they run continuously, even when the plane is on the ground?)

Plus, unless they were discussing something truly heinous, it strikes me as basically being like covering for an overdrawn check by going down and holding up the bank. It makes sense from a certain perspective, but damn if it still isn't a stupid thing to do.
posted by Kadin2048 at 12:23 AM on October 24, 2009

I do know two people who drove close on a hundred miles beyond their destination because they hadn't seen each other for a couple of years and were so engrossed in their conversation they just carried on down the motorway and missed their junction.

However, they didn't have repeated radio calls asking them what the hell they were doing...
posted by Coobeastie at 2:34 AM on October 24, 2009

It's kind of an interesting theory, but it's not like the contents of cockpit voice recorders are routinely dumped on landing

Yeah, I thought about that for a moment and realized that unless there was an incident there would not be a voice recorder check. Sleep is probably the boring answer here.
posted by Burhanistan at 3:52 AM on October 24, 2009

One of the pilots gave a brief interview and said that they were neither asleep nor arguing but that he couldn't say more before the hearings.
posted by Justinian at 1:09 PM on October 24, 2009

Oh, my pet theory is that they were overcome by ardor and engaging in rough sex and so lost track of time.
posted by Justinian at 1:10 PM on October 24, 2009 [3 favorites]

Federal safety investigators said the pilots of Northwest Flight 188 violated company policy by opening up laptops in midair, as the distracted pilots discussed work-scheduling issues while failing to monitor the airplane or calls from air-traffic controllers. (WSJ)
posted by gac at 3:03 PM on October 26, 2009

And their licenses have now been yanked. NYT story here.
posted by bearwife at 3:31 PM on October 27, 2009

The letter the FAA sent to the captain is pretty scathing.

You have demonstrated your lack of regard for or inability to adhere to your responsibility to exercise the highest standard of care, judgment, skill and responsibility as expected of an airman serving as Pilot in Command of a scheduled, passenger carrying flight in air transportation. Your lack of awareness that NW188 had overflown the airport to which it had been dispatched and cleared until the aircraft had reached Eau Claire Wisconsin (approximately 150 miles beyond MSP), is completely unacceptable. This is particularly true because your overflight resulted in NW188's failure to comply with its clearance as issued. Aggravating your overflight is the fact that you were not communicating with Air Traffic Control, and neither the Denver ARTCC, the Minneapolis ARTCC nor the Northwestern Dispatcher was able to communicate with NW188.

You engaged in conduct that put your passengers and your crew in serious jeopardy. NW188 was without communication with any Air Traffic Control facility and with its company dispatcher for a period of 91 minutes (over 1.5 hours) while you were on a frolic of your own. Failing to comply with ATC clearances or instructions while engaged in air carrier operations is extremely reckless. Not only did you not comply with clearances or instructions, you did not even monitor the aircraft's air-ground radios. You were disengaged and impervious to the serious threat to your own safety, as well as the safety of people for whom you are responsible. This is a total dereliction and disregard for your duties.

posted by exogenous at 7:54 AM on October 30, 2009