Flight 188 Pilots Appeal, Claiming Bonus Miles Excursion Harmless

by Standtall | November 6, 2009 at 08:03 am

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Nov. 5 (Bloomberg) -- The Delta Air Lines Inc. pilots who overflew their Minneapolis destination by 150 miles appealed the revocation of their licenses, the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board said today. The appeal received late yesterday didn’t give a reason why the decision should be reversed, said Ted Lopatkiewicz, a board spokesman. The matter will be assigned to an administrative law judge and a hearing will probably be held within four months, he said.

Source: bloomberg.com

The two Northwest flight 188 pilot’s suspension was due to putting the 144 passengers of Northwest Flight 188 in serious danger on Oct. 21 as the two failed to communicate with anyone on the ground for 91 minutes. The ground air traffic controllers and Northwest officials repeatedly made attempts to reach them.

The two Northwest pilot’s story told to investigators was that they lost track of time and place working on crew scheduling on their laptops. They said they didn't realize their situation until a Northwest flight attendant made contact with them on the intercom to ask when the plane would be landing. At that point the Airbus A320 was over Wisconsin, 150 miles past the Minneapolis destination and flying at an altitude of 37,000 feet.

This pilot’s significant error has raised questions and speculation of what really happened and caused such a significant distraction as to completely lose ground contact and overfly their destination by 150 miles?

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