FAA revokes licences of Northwest Pilots

[mbav8r]

Thoughts? They messed up big, but should their entire career be tarnished and over?
Pilots of wayward jet lose licensesBy Mike M. Ahlers, CNN
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
NEW: Pilots were "extremely reckless," "on a frolic," FAA says
NEW: Radio silence lasted 91 minutes, longer than initially believed, FAA says
Pair involved in overflight of Minneapolis-St. Paul airport in Minnesota last week
NTSB: Pilots were on laptops, discussing scheduling system, lost track of time
Washington (CNN) -- The Federal Aviation Administration revoked the licenses of two Northwest Airlines pilots Tuesday in an extraordinary letter in which the agency chastised the pair, saying they endangered the public by flying an hour and half without contacting controllers "while you were on a frolic of your own."

The letter to Northwest Captain Timothy B. Cheney and First Officer Richard I. Cole puts the total time the pilots maintained radio silence at 91 minutes -- 13 minutes longer than originally defined by federal investigators.

The letter said the pilots were "extremely reckless."

"Not only did you not comply with ... [air traffic controller] instructions, you did not even monitor the aircraft's air-ground radios," the letter said. "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."

The letter provides new details about the flight.

Cheney, 53, and Cole, 54, were piloting Flight 188 from San Diego, California, to the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport in Minnesota on Wednesday when air traffic controllers lost radio contact with the Airbus A320 over the Denver, Colorado, area.

Instead of beginning to descend as planned about 22 minutes before its scheduled arrival, the plane continued flying at its cruise altitude of 35,000 feet and passed over the Minnesota airport.

At 8:14 p.m. CT -- 36 minutes after the plane was to begin its descent and 14 minutes after its scheduled arrival -- the pilots contacted controllers, the FAA said.

One of the pilots radioed: "We got distracted and we've overflown MSP [Minneapolis-St. Paul airport]. We are overhead EAU [Eau Claire, Wisconsin] and would like to make a 180 and to [make] an arrival from over EAU."

Cheney and Cole told federal investigators that they "lost track of time" while working on personal laptop computers, the National Transportation Safety Board said. They became aware of their plane's position only after a flight attendant asked about the landing time, according to the NTSB.

The FAA said the revocations cite several violations of regulations, including failure to comply with air traffic control and clearances and operating carelessly and recklessly.

The pilots have 10 days to appeal the revocations, which are effective immediately, to the NTSB, the FAA said.

Flight 188 carried 144 passengers, the two pilots and three flight attendants.

Cheney was hired in 1985 and has more than 20,000 hours of flight time, while Cole was hired in 1997 and has about 11,000 hours of flight time, according to an NTSB report released Monday.

Neither pilot reported having had an accident, incident or violation, neither had any ongoing medical conditions, and neither said he was tired, the report said.

They each had had a 19-hour layover in San Diego; neither said he had slept or argued during the flight, but both said "there was a distraction" in the cockpit, according to the report.

The pilots said there was "a concentrated period of discussion where they did not monitor the airplane or calls" from air traffic control, though both said they heard conversation on the radio, the report said.

Neither pilot said he noticed messages sent by company dispatchers, the report added. It said the men were talking about a new monthly crew flight scheduling system that was put into place in the wake of Northwest's merger with Delta Air Lines.

"Each pilot accessed and used his personal laptop computer while they discussed the airline crew flight scheduling procedure," the report said. "The first officer, who was more familiar with the procedure, was providing instruction to the captain."

After landing at the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport, both voluntarily underwent alcohol breath tests, which proved negative, the report said.

[mbav8r]

FAA fines Southwest Airlines over 10 million dollars for flying unsafe planes
by Grant Martin (RSS feed) on Mar 7th 2008 at 7:00AM
In the wake of the recent news that Southwest Airlines (WN) was caught flying planes past their security checks, the FAA just slapped the airline with a ten million dollar fine.

The issue stems with an error in safety checking a section of the aircraft fuselage; several of the redundant checks missed a section of the skin, thus creating the potential for one to miss finding a crack. Mind you, there were no faults in the aircraft skin found and all aircraft are still safe. Don't put your tickets on Ebay yet.

That error in and of itself is a pretty big deal, but its mendable. Where the crap really hits the fan is where we find that several (select) FAA and Southwest officials knew about the oversight and didn't do anything about it. Before it was a mistake -- now its criminal.
Congress, in their overreacting state of things is calling a hearing to get to the bottom of the issue. One Mr. James Oberstar went so far as to call it "one of the worst safety violations" that he has ever seen. I'd personally like to find out what those (select) schemers over at WN and the FAA were up to when they didn't mention the error.

I wonder if all involved here still have their careers?

[scopiton]

Neither pilot said he noticed messages sent by company dispatchers, the report added. It said the men were talking about a new monthly crew flight scheduling system that was put into place in the wake of Northwest's merger with Delta Air Lines

If I was an FAA official I would be very curious to know in what consists this crew flight scheduling that diverts pilot from their duties, and would talk about it with Northwest and Delta (S)crew sched managers...
the fact that working conditions, organization, relationships within a professional environment distract pilots from doing their job is an evidence of a sloppy management and bad decision making from said management.
so obvious...
o.o2$

[Dilbert Pickles]

Looks like SMS is all Southwest needs!

[chancellor]

Yeah they messed up big. They should face the full extent. Anyway they want to cover it up, the fact remains they were asleep at the wheel!

[catan man]

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ Knock knock knock... "Huh? Ohh shiiiiit... F@ck! Do we have enough fuel to get back?"

I had a dream we we're flying Hamilton to Thunder Bay and I woke up(in the dream) looked over and saw the other guy asleep. Looked where we were (over Rankin) looked at the fuel 250lbs and thought, we're fired.

I remember actually waking up and feeling good that it was only a dream.

[Dilbert Pickles]

Sooo let me get this straight,

Everyone can honestly say they have never accidentally fallen asleep? Even the little micro sleeps where yours eyes are open but your brain is in sleep mode. I know how the "die hard" (get the job done) type will answer the question. Usually the management type. But really, who can honestly say they have felt completely safe and fine (having your family in the back) after a 14 plus duty day that say, starts at 11 pm? I for one have felt horrible for the safety of myself and the passengers doing this.

These days are produced in the office with management and is completely LEGAL. How can any pilot or human let this happen? Just because the book says we can do it, it's safe? I love it and yes SMS will work just fine. And to add insult to injury we have one of the only persons (here) speaking up for us to make our lives safe and our profession respected once again and she's not a pilot. (Thx Widow) Most messed up spineless back stabbing profession I've ever seen and sad to say, been involved with.

Have a wonderful day folks!

DP

[AME 283]

And if this would have happened with a SMS company in Canada, the regulator would do nothing, and if the company did nothing and through tactical responses after a year TC could not do anything.

Might be interesting to see what the company did if anything to their pilots ??

[bmc]

Neither pilot said he noticed messages sent by company dispatchers, the report added. It said the men were talking about a new monthly crew flight scheduling system that was put into place in the wake of Northwest's merger with Delta Air Lines

If I was an FAA official I would be very curious to know in what consists this crew flight scheduling that diverts pilot from their duties, and would talk about it with Northwest and Delta (S)crew sched managers...
the fact that working conditions, organization, relationships within a professional environment distract pilots from doing their job is an evidence of a sloppy management and bad decision making from said management.
so obvious...
o.o2$

Make that $0.01

Would you blame company management as well if the guys screw up their flying while in the midst of divorce or some other family crisis?

[GilletteNorth]

So let's figure it out. They were supposed to start their descent 36 minutes earlier from the time they finally reported they had overflown Minneapolis. Their last transmission to ATC was 55 minutes prior to where they should have called for descent. So sometime after that they opened their laptops and got into a discussion about airline scheduling...

For all the people discussing this... YOU may believe they fell asleep and I may believe that they fell asleep but the pilots claim they were using their laptops so without any CVR to back it up and since no one ELSE was in the cockpit with them I guess we gotta accept their story and figure out a plausible timeline. But then again they both claimed they weren't fatigued, they DID have a long layover and rest period... why would they be tired... both of them??

I can see them after the last ATC call where they decide to use their laptops. Calculations say they had about 55 minutes spare time prior to the point they needed to ask for descent clearance. They are flying along, talking about the schedule but can't discuss it as well without using their laptops. They think to themselves "we've got lots of time before we need to talk to ATC again, we can use the cockpit speakers to hear any calls, the autopilot will take care of things until then, let's get out our laptops." The autopilot is doing the flying safely so they don't fear the aircraft will crash and can grab the controls if anything happens.They then proceed to get so immersed in their discussion while using their laptops that they claim to hear voices on the radio but don't catch any calls directed at themselves. They also get so distracted by their discussion they loose track of time until they have flown almost 150 miles (20 minutes flying time in an A320?) past their destination.

Finally we get to the stewardess, who is also aware the aircraft should have started descent and will be the one answering questions from the passengers about why they haven't arrived yet. She calls the crew on the intercom and is the catalyst in getting the crew's attention back to where it should be to fly back to MSP. It's not like they would have continued flying along without much longer (how long can you discuss scheduling) or that no one else on the plane would have started questioning why they hadn't arrived. Why didn't the FAA send F16's after the flight because ever since 911 everyone knows that a flight deviation is a terrorist in motion but I digress.

Hasn't anyone else gotten distracted to the point that they forget the time? I'm not arguing they didn't made a mistake and it was a big one. I'm not arguing they shouldn't even be fired from Northwest. But taking their licence for the mistake of being distracted for what essentially is a very short period of time that seems long because of the distance the A320 flew safely on autopilot seems a bit much for two people who depend on a licence for their livelyhood when no one was injured. They barely ate into the aircraft's fuel reserve. They went past their clearance limit but lots of other pilots have done similar stuff if not worse. They missed calls on the radio but so many others have done the same. ATC was watching them and even though the aircraft was not cleared to go past MSP they would have kept other aircraft away. The FAA should have been doing something like say, launching fighters to go check as soon as the plane overflew without contact (hmmm can you say "deflect attention away from the FAA because they didn't do anything either except now announcing they are pulling licences"... I knew you could). The FAA uses words like reckless but I don't think the pilots were reckless. They were foolish for not watching the time, thoughless for not realizing the discussion might distract them overly much, but there were lots of thing that were going to prevent this from becoming a major accident. Watchful ATC, the other crew and passengers on the plane, the fact the autopilot was flying the aircraft safely, their altitude, their fuel load, the FAA COULD have sent a fighter to check, these guys saying they were distracted, not ASLEEP (which in my opinion would be worse... try grabbing the controls while awakening from the stupor of sleep as compared to being awake but distracted) all would have contributed to preventing an accident.

Yes it would have been better if they had not become distracted in the first place, but they are human, so welcome to the human race.

[TyrellCorp]

+1 GilletteNorth. Good post!

[GilletteNorth]

I discussed this with a friend and like most people he agreed with the decision by the FAA to pull the licences. I do understand the position and with so many pilots out there what is it going to matter if there are 2 less but...

He was emphatic that the laptops were the distraction and by purposely using them against company policy the pilots made the decision to be distracted/ignore their responsibilities. I couldn't get him to see that the laptops were just a tool that might have contributed to being distracted but wasn't the distraction in and of itself. I mean really, what was the make of the laptop because I want to buy shares in that company if it can hold 2 pilot's attention so steadfast that they overfly their destination. I have said elsewhere that I'm sure the pilots didn't say "We're going to discuss this scheduling and ignore everything else until we are done".

IFRATC stated that: My other concern is the fact that many have basically said "no harm no foul" with respect to this incident. You know what? I would almost agree to some extent had the crew realized the error of their actions and corrected this. THIS WAS NOT THE CASE. Every possible avenue was pursued to contact this crew. 78 minutes later something worked. How far would this flight have gone had NOBODY got a hold of the crew??? They had not heard any attempts to establish contact. Would they have heard a TCAS warning?? Maybe the flight would have continued to the point that it would have become critical?!? The fact that the flight landed without further incident does not absolve the crew of negligence. In fact, the crew really had NO involvement in initially rectifying the incident.

Many accidents waiting to happen have been prevented by outside influence without which the pilot may have crashed and damaged/destroyed the aircraft. I posted a recent AOR example of a pilot forgetting to put his gear down on approach and being tweaked by the tower controller on short final. If the standard is that a pilot loses his licence because he did nothing to correct a situation that could lead to an accident without outside influence then THAT pilot should lose his licence.

Speculating that the flight could have gone further and the situation could have become more critical is pointless because it DIDN'T. Coulda/shoulda/woulda/didn't.
Very recently a controller didn't notice when a high flyer which was going through his sector had the transponder fail, the target coasted on the radar and then disappeared. The aircraft then flew for more than 15 minutes until the next sector controller, expecting the aircraft and not seeing it enter his control area contacted the flight, had them recycle the transponder and radar identified the aircraft. This was reported in the AOR's. Is the first controller being held to the same standard of safety as these pilots and has he lost his licence?

It's easy to sit back and make statements that safety is the biggest concern and by far the easiest way to ensure an incident doesn't happen again is to remove the components that caused the problem. But we aren't talking about equipment or procedures or training, we are talking about fallable human beings who are very experienced, still have a wealth of experience, have LEARNED a new lesson and probably won't ever make that error again. They now HAVE the experience of being distracted and thankfully it was without unfortunate consequence. The 'hole in the swiss cheese' has been closed. Compare that to replacing them with 2 new pilots who constitute an unknown quality. It cannot be proven that the new crew will never make a similar or worse mistake, so is that better? Will the new pilots never make an error? Unlikely.

The only reason to take the licences away is to make an example of these pilots. You have to ask how effective that will be since all pilots are already aware that distraction can lead to serious consequences. Is the message supposed to be 'do not allow distractions or accidents can occur' (which in this case did not) or 'do not allow distractions or you will lose your licence'? Excessive punishment will just reinforce the desire by pilots to hide their mistakes or they will face being made into scapegoats as well. How effective is that in promoting safety?

[bmc]

http://www.thefump.com/embedded_player.swf?fumpID=1236