I saw in the news about the commercial airline flew over 150 miles away from destination point,
so if radio equipment it's not working properly and they communicate with the control tower. I am sure if they working harder it's will get the best result same as all other branch too

I wonder if the pilot was related to "Wrong Way Corrigan"!

or maybe it was a plan to test our National Defense systems.... ie, scramble the jets to intercept a hyjacked plane.

One answer: Brain Dump!!!

They absolutely SCREWED UP!! Intentionally ignored calls and computer alerts from FAA!! FAA was in the process of scrambling not 2 but 4 jets to possibly shoot them down!! The only thing that stopped the possible deaths of everyone on board was these dip-shyyts finally pulled their heads out of their azzes and finally realized where they were, then asked for permission to turn around!!

As a guy that worked directly with airborne pilots for 15 years, I've NEVER heard of pilots doing anything that stupid without getting planes metal to metal and people hurt or killed. Those guys need jail time to send a message: When you're IFR, DON'T SCREW AROUND BECAUSE PEOPLE CAN DIE!!

----- The Wright Bro`s are now saying they were BOTH on their lap-tops & lost track of time!!! --- Yea, and I trashed my winning Lotto ticket because I was too lazy to cash it in....

Computer games and texting while driving?? What a couple of idiots!! They could have gone metal to metal with a 747!! Now those that know anything about FAA above 18000 know that planes flying one direction fly even number altitudes and planes flying another fly odd number altitudes - but over major cities where there are holding patterns, that's still like taking a straight line through a traffic circle in Spain or Italy -!

Lap tops........ hmmm, Brunette, 5'7", 130lbs, 38B... one could see losing track of time...... I mean it was near noon.

Can you spell - "Pornicopia"?

Both pilots were working on their laptops at their time. I'm sure there will be some heavy penalties from both the airline and the FAA over it. Maybe even the NTSB will get involved.

My take on this.
No one was ever in any danger.
The aircraft was at altitude (35k or so)flying on a victor airway. At the speed they travel, were talking a little over 10 minuits inattention. unacceptable, yes but when they did not land the inroute controlers alerted any other conflict aircraft
There are no stacks anymore, they hold aircraft on deck befor departure to save fuel when there are landing delays and even if one should happen because of ,say a broken aircraft on the runway, they would stack them below the cruise altitudes, hold any still on deck. So any stacks would be small.
Had any intercepter aircraft been launched, they would try to make visual contact befor any other action was taken.
No one was ever in any danger and a good stiff fine, or pull his licence for a few months. That will send the correct message.

Shockey

quote:

Originally posted by shockey:
My take on this.
No one was ever in any danger.
The aircraft was at altitude (35k or so)flying on a victor airway. At the speed they travel, were talking a little over 10 minuits inattention. unacceptable, yes but when they did not land the inroute controlers alerted any other conflict aircraft
There are no stacks anymore, they hold aircraft on deck befor departure to save fuel when there are landing delays and even if one should happen because of ,say a broken aircraft on the runway, they would stack them below the cruise altitudes, hold any still on deck. So any stacks would be small.
Had any intercepter aircraft been launched, they would try to make visual contact befor any other action was taken.
No one was ever in any danger and a good stiff fine, or pull his licence for a few months. That will send the correct message.

Shockey

It would be nice if it were that simple, but to save fuel and cost hardly anybody flies VorTac to VorTac in straight lines any more if they can get permission to cut corners. I had to do Point-Outs all the time to Commercial Heavies cutting right through the middle of Military Air Space while I was in the middle of Intercepts and Refuelings... FAA says "We're bending this guy through here at 35,000" and I'm doing refuelings with 2 tankers in a cell and 8 receivers coming from all directions at 30,000 and below and I got to crowd everybody to one side to let this guy through to make FAA happy and save some airline a few bucks - -

They're just damned lucky they didn't have a "Deal" with descending or climbing traffic while they were ignoring radio traffic and get everybody killed - and you know it!!

I just cannot see two pilots screwing the pooch this way... I think there is more to this then what is being presented. And if it is what has been reported then this goes on waaaaaaaaay more then this one time... they just got caught.

You can make up all the what if's you want.
The fact is that all the redundicies were working and the aircraft was in no danger.
The inrouts alerted all the conflicts and any Arrival /departure controlers were alerted and they did their thing.
I'm not trying to say this was nothing, it certanly needs to be corrected, but the media blitz and people crying for blood (many of whom
don't have any idea what their talking about)
may convince the FAA to do some big brother FAR changes (that nobody wants) just so they can show their doing something.
The guy (PIC) probably will get fired, fined, and have his ticket pulled.
I say thats enough.

Shockey

Until the next pair screw up an kill some folks - -

It's a crowded sky up there, only slightly less because of the bad times. What is the "separation" now - 3 miles and 1000 feet? It was 5 miles and 2000 when I was working, and still we nearly had mid-airs. Deals happened all the time because pilots misheard or just missed a call, even when they were busting their eardrums trying to hear... Now these yocals are intentionally ignoring calls over heavily populated areas back east where the traffic is a thick as ticks on a boar?? They could have run two jets together over a city of a million people. If they were military, the whole damned squadron would be shut down, and the commander and the exec would be out on their ear while the Inspector General would be in there tearing the whole place apart looking for more symptoms of azzholes and laxity, and that's just what should happen to that airline - the whole company - to snap them back to reality.

By the way, every Controller that had to make an extra call to that plane, or re-route traffic was making forced split second decisions that could have been wrong, that could have taken their eyes off from other conflicts arising on some other part of their scope on the edge of their AOR. I've had pilots jacked up just for busting airspace by a few miles or failing to take a call for a turn or a point-out. The movie Top Gun is bullshyyt. People break safety rules they pay, and the people who trained them and supervise them pay - because that keeps people alive in the sky!

The passengers should all be suing for reckless endangerment . . .

Air traffic controllers in Denver had been in contact with the pilots as they flew over the Rockies, FAA spokeswoman Laura Brown said. But as the plane got closer to Minneapolis, she said, "the Denver center tried to contact the flight but couldn't get anyone." Denver controllers notified their counterparts in Minneapolis, who also tried to reach the crew without success, Brown said. Controllers and the pilots finally resumed communication when the plane was over Eau Claire, Wis.



Rocky Mountains to Wisconsin with no contact - That's more than 500 miles. Anybody want to quote the IFR rules for a Civilian Heavy transitioning from one FAA Sector to another while passing over 3 or 4 states??

No? Then I will, as best as I can remember after 10 years. "Under IFR the pilot will monitor FAA Center radio frequency at all times... When transitioning from on Sector to another, the Center controller will direct a change of frequency to the pilot for hand off to the next Center."

Those pilots broke every rule of IFR flying. They busted Air Space without the proper frequency and had no idea of what traffic or special conditions might lay before them. Because they were on the wrong frequency, the controllers probably had to go out on "Guard" the emergency frequency, to get them. That's like calling 911, and if another plane would have needed that frequency, it would have been tied up until Minnesota finally got them to listen and toggle the proper freq.

When they landed, police bordered the plane to be certain it had not been a high-jacking and traumatized the passengers...

188 people could have died - -

Heads should roll - -

This message has been edited. Last edited by: greywolfghost,

The two pilots ignored 13 calls over an hour and 20 minutes's period of time!! At 550 knots, that plane covered 1/4 of the United States without contact! Because many aircraft use GPS now to navigate, they can be crossing eachother's path at the same altitude! Altimeter/barometric setting can change across a route. If the pilot does not have the proper reading for the locality, he may be plus or minus the altitude he is reading on his instruments by several 100 feet. Special flights come through all the time. Because "Separation" has been intentionally shrunk down from 5 miles to 3 miles horizontal to get more planes in the sky, the air lanes are like crowded freeways, except that planes can cut across where ever they wish. The only way pilots can be safe in all of this is to keep sharp continual contact with ATC and keep at least one set of eyes out of the windscreens - -

They breached every safety rule they could, outside of trying to do aerobatics, and absolutely breached the trust of putting the safety of their passengers first and foremost.

ATC: "That is the most severe loss of situation awareness I have witnessed in 20 years of experience! The last time something like this happened, a plane crashed short of the runway and killed 80 people, because the pilots were arguing about Nixon's pardon."

Ya heads will roll. That pilot, and the copilot will take the heat. I'm just not ready to shoot them for things that did not happen.
I'm a guy that would prefer to focous on the fact, the system worked, everyone was kept safe.
The controlers were on top of it. The Air Force was on top of it. The cops were on top of it.
You can let you mind go wild with the what if's and coulda happened's. You can expand those out to the rediculous if ya want.
The fact is, the system was working.
To everyone involved (except the pilots)
WELL DONE

Shockey

Pretty hard to harshly punish pilots who have scattered their plane and passengers over 5 to 10 miles of terrain!

188 very lucky people, with no thanks to these two nit-wits, have every reason to demand all hell comes down on those guys!

Planes can now take off, fly, and land themselves (supposedly) without even having pilots aboard. The sole reason those pilots are still aboard is to do what these idiots weren't doing: To remain aware and vigilant!

Maybe it's time for a personal example: One night I was controlling intercepts between a set of F-16s, one of which was a 2-seater D Model. Post-intercepts, I handed them off to a controller seated next to me who was handling the refuelings. He controlled the fighters through the refueling process, then handed both the tanker and the fighters to FAA/ATC for transition back to their airbases. We monitored the A/C through the process until they where out of our airspace, then began to shut down, because it was our last missions that night...

Suddenly, FAA came to us over the land line and asked if one of the F-16s had com back to us... It hadn't, but we jumped back on the scopes and broadened our search radius to have a look - and could find nothing. Immediately, we started wider search, while securing all tapes that had recorded the night's events...

To make a long story short, the two pilots in the D-model, after hand off to ATC, thought "the other guy was flying the plane" and had started doing paper work, because it was a "Check-ride" for the pilot, a Colonel, in the front seat. The backseater was a Colonel also - and an Instructor Pilot. So both guys had their eyes inside the cockpit on paperwork, and no one was flying the plane. It slightly descended, and they gathered up a mountain top!

That's the kind of thing that happens when pilots DON'T listen and communicate!!

This message has been edited. Last edited by: greywolfghost,

quote:

Originally posted by Vicdude:
Both pilots were working on their laptops at their time. I'm sure there will be some heavy penalties from both the airline and the FAA over it. Maybe even the NTSB will get involved.

Hopefully they weren't working each other's laptops!
But hey, 'Don't Ask/Don't Tell'!

Simply put both pilots should be fired and their license revoked. I also think the name cockpit should be banned as it is offensive whenever you have two male pilots flying together.

quote:

Originally posted by Duster6:
Simply put both pilots should be fired and their license revoked. I also think the name cockpit should be banned as it is offensive whenever you have two male pilots flying together.

Yeah, with two guys who has to be the pit?