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San Diego,
October 24, 2009 – Investigations are under way in the US to find out
how a plane heading from San Diego to Minneapolis overshot its
destination by 150 miles (240km).
Contact with the Northwest Airlines plane was lost for an hour as it
flew at 37,000ft, sparking hijack fears.
Federal investigators are examining the plane's data and voice recorders
to establish why the pilots failed to answer calls from air traffic
control.
The crew said they had been distracted by a "heated discussion".
Flight 188, carrying 147 passengers, landed safely at Minneapolis after
contact was resumed.
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said the cockpit voice
and data recorders had been sent to Washington DC, where they are being
analyzed.
It is hoped the voice recordings will provide evidence of the
conversations between the two pilots, who told the FBI that "they were
in a heated discussion over airline policy and lost situational
awareness".
The data recorder could show if there was any manipulation of the
controls on the flight deck.
The NTSB gave no indication of how long the analysis of the recorders
could take.
Wrong path
Board spokesman Keith Holloway told the Associated Press news agency
that reports in the media that the pilots may have fallen asleep were
"speculative" but the investigation would look at "fatigue issues".
Questions have been raised about how the pilots could have missed any
warning signals - including city lights and cockpit displays showing
that they were no longer on the right path.
The NTSB's former chief investigator into major accidents, Ben Berman
said pilots learned to become instinctively aware of when they needed to
start landing preparations and it would take a "fairly dramatic event"
to distract them, AP reported.
The plane left San Diego at 1500 local time (2200 GMT) for what would
normally be a three-hour journey.
Air traffic controllers lost radio contact with the plane approximately
an hour before it was due to reach its destination of Minneapolis-St
Paul International/Wold-Chamberlain Airport.
The plane missed its intended stop and continued on for a further 16
minutes before the airline managed to speak to the pilots.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) contacted the military and two
fighter jets were put on alert.
There were initial concerns the plane had been hijacked or had faced
other problems and that was why the crew were not responding.
Northwest Airlines merged with Delta Air Lines in 2008.
In a statement, Delta Air Lines said the plane's pilot and co-pilot had
been "relieved from active flying".
It said a decision would be made about them once its own internal
investigation and one by the FAA and the safety board were over.
Brent Bjorlin, who was on the flight, told the Minnesota Star Tribune
newspaper that the passengers had not realized what had happened until
they landed and security officials boarded the plane.
Fellow passenger Andrea Allmon said it was "unbelievable" that the
pilots had allegedly not been paying attention.
"These guys are supposed to be paying attention to the flight. The
safety of the passengers should be first and foremost," she said.
Doug Church, a spokesman for the National Air Traffic Controllers'
Association, told the Wall Street Journal controllers at the airport
began worrying about terrorism as a factor when they could not reach the
crew.
He said when the controllers eventually made contact, to allay their
fears the crew had been threatened or overpowered, they made the pilots
prove they were still in control of the plane.
Once they were satisfied, the plane made its way back to the airport.
Source: BBC, October 23, 2009
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