Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Pilots engaged in conversation
Just wanting to know Brian's perspective on this situation. How often does this happen?....not the over shooting their destination, but pilots being so involved in their conversation that they tune everything else out, including the radio traffic trying to hail them. Did they literally turn the radios off? Or did they just tune their ear out? If the plain were on auto pilot, wouldn't it have told them that it was approaching it's destination? How did they miss that? Very curious indeed.
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9 comments:
Politically correct response: We will have to wait and see what the investigation reveals once it is complete.
Speculative response: Don't know what happened. Probably will never know exactly. The CVR (cockpit voice recorder) is a 1/2 hour looped tape that erases and records over previous recordings. Therefore, I am sure that the last info recorded was very professional and kept to pertinent flight info only.
If they both did fall asleep it wouldn't be the first time.
Example 1) Feb 19, 2008 a GO! flight from Honolulu to Hilo over flew it's destination by 15 miles. Controllers were unable to hail the aircraft for 25 minutes. Pilots landed plane without further incident.
Example 2) Charles Lindburgh fell asleep while the plane was on autopilot while crossing the Atlantic.
Example 3) March 4, 2004 A United A319 was unresponsive to ATC calls while on approach to Denver International. The pilots both admitted to fatique and fell asleep. Pilots landed plane safely without further incident.
So to say it happens often I would say not. But to say it doesn't happen would obviously be a lie. With the thousands and thousands of flights that safely criss-cross our skys on a daily basis the odds of favor you winning the lottery than having an flight abnormality.
Statistically, as we are all aware, the driver in the car next to you is more dangerous.
My question, is have you ever driven home in a daze, and once you were there wondered, "Wow, I don't remember that drive at all? I don't remember getting off the exit or driving up the highway?"
As pilots we always get recurrent training on human factors or the attempt to minimize the risk of human error in such cases. The FAA has strict rules on such things but they do not have rules that guarantee a soft bed or hard bed, a noisy or quiet hotel room at each hotel layover which may disturb a pilots ability to "rest" while off duty.
To answer your specific questions...No they do not literally turn off the radios. Only terrorist who fly planes into buildings do that. The "plains" as you wrote are always on autopilot. They grow by themselves quite naturally. The "planes" used for transportation, may or may not have warning systems that would, could or should alert the crew. The autopilot will not descend if the pilot has not commanded it to descend. It will only do what it has been preprogrammed to do. It will fly fat, dumb and happy til it runs out of fuel which was the case of Payne Stewart's plane. He was a pro golfer whos plane crashed on Oct 25, 1999, after flying hours off course from Orlando to SD. You can google Payne Stewart crash if you like for more details.
I'm not excusing the pilots actions by any means because I'm sure the investigation will reveal what happened but... remember that if a plane was flying at 600mph, over shooting by 150 miles is about 15 minutes as opposed to the 2 and a half hours it would take to drive the same distance in a car. 15 minutes can go by pretty quickly. Its kind of like missing an exit or a turn when you are driving...ever done that before? I know I have, even with the lady in my GPS box screaming and swearing at me for not listening to her.
Didn't the flight attendants think something fishy was going on when the pilots didn't tell them to prepare the cabin for landing?
Remember the Korean passenger jet that was shot down by the Soviets in the 1980s? The plane was indeed off course and the pilots ostensibly were playing card games to pass the time and they failed to realize that autopilot was operating on incorrect data.
I know that the flight attendants alerted the pilots but how they knew to alert them I do not know. Was it just because they became curious as to the extended flying time or did does the A320 have flight tracking videos like many airplanes have now and they noticed that MSP came and went. Like I said, I am waiting with baited breath the final investigative report.
Looks like the FAA has stripped them of their licenses. Since they have said that they were working on their laptops, which is against Delta company policy they very well may loose their jobs as well. We will see how the union and the company work this one out.
Apparently the NWA pilots may not have been aware of Delta's no laptop policy. Apparently NWA did not restrict their pilots from using laptops. The FAA really stripped them of their licenses?
Brian, just a word of warning from your older brother....don't use your laptop while flying! Kim
Yikes! Taking their licenses to fly away is very harsh. Why not a suspension with no pay or something like that?
By FAA regulations the pilots have 10 days to appeal the revocation. If the revocation is upheld then they can apply for reinstatement or a return of their license after one year. The appeal process may take that long anyway.
They should have been aware of the Delta policy. We became one group months ago and they were all issued Delta books and manuals such as the FOM (Flight Operating Manual) and POH (Pilot Operating Handbook).
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