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Who cares about nwa sleeping pilots, they did not crash!!!

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I hope you're being sarcastic... I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you are.

These guys got lucky. They could just as easily have made a smoking crater in Ontario. I don't want my wife and son flying with crews that only get them to their destination by sheer luck.

After reading several of your comments on these boards it sure does seem that you have some serious ill will towards NWA. As someone who now works at NWA and someone who spent 12 years at XJT, believe me when I tell you I would put MY wife & kids (and anyone else i love, for that matter) on NWA/DAL without a second thought. I can honestly NOT say that about XJT!

There is little doubt that that the crew of Flight 188 screwed up. But you seem to be questioning the skill and experience of NWA crews. There is NO comparison, believe me! Not an attack on XJT by any means, just the reality of the situation. Apparantly you are of superior skill and would never screw up so maybe you wouldn't understand how this crew could have. The experience in the cockpit of flight 188 far exceeds that of just about any crew you could put together at XJT. Your day will come, and many will be on here calling for your head!!!!

Safe Flyin!

VOL
 
Why don't ya boys wait to see what the NTSB finds out. Things may not appear as they seem. Just let the professionals do their job and tell us what really happened.
 
After reading several of your comments on these boards it sure does seem that you have some serious ill will towards NWA. As someone who now works at NWA and someone who spent 12 years at XJT, believe me when I tell you I would put MY wife & kids (and anyone else i love, for that matter) on NWA/DAL without a second thought. I can honestly NOT say that about XJT!

There is little doubt that that the crew of Flight 188 screwed up. But you seem to be questioning the skill and experience of NWA crews. There is NO comparison, believe me! Not an attack on XJT by any means, just the reality of the situation. Apparantly you are of superior skill and would never screw up so maybe you wouldn't understand how this crew could have. The experience in the cockpit of flight 188 far exceeds that of just about any crew you could put together at XJT. Your day will come, and many will be on here calling for your head!!!!

Safe Flyin!

VOL


Vol - let me set the record straight for you.

1. I don't know where you get the idea that I have something against NWA or its pilots... Has there been another thread where I've said anything derogatory toward the airline or pilot group? I don't believe so but feel free to correct me. I have a lot of friends at NWA including several other former XJTers and I also have been privelaged enough to get a ride home and to work with NWA on many occasions and believe me when I say that I think they're a class act and I have nothing but the utmost respect for the people there.

2. I don't disagree with you regarding the experience level of NWA vs that of ExpressJet. How can anyone possibly argue that point... It'd be like trying to say that the students at Harvard were less educated than the students at the high school across town. I would never contend otherwise. In fact, you make the point for me that I and many others are trying to make. Just because the crew may be supremely qualified, it doesn't make them immune to making mistakes.

3. I'm not trying to say that I'm Chuck Yeager Jnr by any means. I can and do make mistakes on the flight deck nearly every time I fly, which is probably the case for most of us. Thankfully, I try to fly fairly close to the recommended SOP's for my airline and I probably have that to thank for the fact that I've yet to make any GLARING horrible errors to this point. Not to say that I'm immune from making one, because we all can in the right set of circumstances. The major issue with this NWA incident is that the guys are clearly lying about what happened in the cockpit that day. There is no excuse for lying. If it's proved that they're lying then they should be thrown out and never allowed to command an airliner again. Nobody on any forum has yet been able to produce a plausible explanation, besides the pilots being asleep, for the series of events that occured on NWA 188 to MSP. If someone can come up with one, then please let us know. I fully expect to be examined and to have my actions and decision making processes disected by my peers following any accident/incident I find myself involved in. One thing I won't do, though, is lie in an attempt to cover up what really happened.


I can see where the statement about my wife and son could be misleading. I certainly didn't intend for it to mean that I'd feel unsafe with them flying on a NWA flight. That's definitely not the case. What I was referring to was that the particular pilots involved should not be allowed to continue flying. I see how the wording I used could have been misinterpreted though, and apologise for that.
 
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I care, because of the knee jerk reaction that will follow after the hearings are over that will affect us all. As I mentioned before, politicians will demand cameras in the cockpit, CVR tapes used in disciplinary hearings, erosion of the ASAP program. Even if these guys were just having a "discussion", the FAA will be pressured to do something. They will probably mandate some crazy new form of sterile cockpit within a given distance of a terminal area.
 
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cockpit video, thats next. Thanks sleeping guys...

good news is duct tape sticks to anything.

Sleep study will now be required for 1st class med....get ready. Mild sleep apnea = no medical.


"Northwest 188 Cleveland Center...over."
 
WASHINGTON — The first officer of the Northwest Airlines jet that missed its destination by 150 miles says there was no disagreement in the cockpit, neither he nor the captain was napping and the passengers were never in any danger.
But in an interview with The Associated Press two days after he and a colleague blew past their destination as air traffic controllers tried frantically to reach them, pilot Richard Cole would not say just what it was that led to them to forget to land Flight 188.
"We were not asleep; we were not having an argument; we were not having a fight," Cole told the AP.


Air traffic controllers and pilots tried for more than an hour Wednesday night to contact Cole and the flight's captain, Timothy B. Cheney, of Gig Harbor, Washington state, using radio, cell phone and data messages.
On the ground, concerned officials alerted National Guard jets to prepare to chase the airliner from two locations, though none of the military planes left the runway.
"It was not a serious event, from a safety issue," Cole said in front of his Salem, Oregon, home. "I would tell you more, but I've already told you way too much."

Unfortunately, the cockpit voice recorder may not tell the tale.
New recorders retain as much as two hours of cockpit conversation and other noise, but the older model aboard Northwest's Flight 188 includes just the last 30 minutes — only the very end of Wednesday night's flight after the pilots realized their error over Wisconsin and were heading back to Minneapolis.
Cole would not discuss why it took so long for the pilots to respond to radio calls, "but I can tell you that airplanes lose contact with the ground people all the time. It happens. Sometimes they get together right away; sometimes it takes awhile before one or the other notices that they are not in contact."
A police report released Friday said the pilots passed breathalyzer tests and were apologetic after the flight. Cheney and Cole had just started their work week and were coming off a 19-hour layover, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported Saturday, citing an internal Northwest document it said was described to the newspaper.


The police report said that the crew indicated they had been having a heated discussion about airline policy.
But aviation safety experts and other pilots were deeply skeptical they could have become so distracted by shop talk that they forgot to land an airplane carrying 144 passengers. The most likely possibility, they said, is that the pilots simply fell asleep somewhere along their route from San Diego.
"It certainly is a plausible explanation," said Bill Voss, president of the Flight Safety Foundation in Alexandria, Virginia.
Cheney and Cole have been suspended and are to be interviewed by National Transportation Safety Board investigators next week. The airline, acquired last year by Delta Air Lines, is also investigating. Messages left at Cheney's home were not returned.
FAA spokesman Tony Molinaro said in general, an unsafe condition created by a pilot could lead to the suspension of the person's pilot license and possibly a civil penalty.
With worries about terrorists still high, even after contact was re-established, air traffic controllers asked the crew to prove who they were by executing turns.
"Controllers have a heightened sense of vigilance when we're not able to talk to an aircraft. That's the reality post-9/11," said Doug Church, a spokesman for the National Air Traffic Controllers Association.
NTSB spokesman Keith Holloway said fatigue and cockpit distraction will be looked into. Investigators were in the process Saturday of scheduling interviews with the pilots, he said.
Audio from the cockpit voice recorder was downloaded at NTSB headquarters on Friday, Holloway said, adding that investigators may have more information about the content on Monday.
During the flight, the pilots were finally alerted to their situation when a flight attendant called on an intercom from the cabin.
Voss said a special concern was that the many safety checks built into the aviation system to prevent incidents like this one — or to correct them quickly — apparently were ineffective until the very end.
Not only couldn't air traffic controllers and other pilots raise the Northwest pilots for an hour, but the airline's dispatcher should have been trying to reach them as well. The three flight attendants onboard should have questioned why there were no preparations for landing being made. Brightly lit cockpit displays should have warned the pilots it was time to land.
"It's probably something you would say never would happen if this hadn't just happened," Voss said.
 

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