Dozing Pilots?

[2 cents]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1256235 ... TopStories
From the article:
A Northwest Airlines flight approaching Minneapolis Wednesday night lost contact with controllers for more than an hour and overshot its destination by about 150 miles before circling back to land. Federal safety regulators are investigating the incident as a possible case of pilots nodding off, according to government and airline-industry officials familiar with the matter.

You'd think those perky flight attendants would keep them awake...

[Marlow]

Re: Dozing Pilots?

You'd think those perky flight attendants would keep them awake...

They don't do much for me.

[tandfman]

the crew told the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the airport police that “they were in a heated discussion over airline policy and they lost situational awareness,”

Lost situational awareness, eh? I guess that's pilot-speak for "we didn't know where the f__ we were."

Edited to fix typo.

[jazzcyclist]

I can only imagine the four-letter words they were spewing when they woke up, and realized how badly they had screwed up.

[SQUACKEE]

This is nothin, Marlow did the same kind of thing in a car!



This is a true story and one that still weirds me out (even though I did figure out what really happened). I drove out of El Paso one morning at about 9am, on my way to Dallas. As I reached the outskirts of town, there was a sign that said - Dallas 500 miles (or whatever it is). I drove on for about a half an hour and then saw a sign that said Dallas 50 miles and I thought to myself how funny it was that the sign was so messed up. But then I started to hit the suburbs of a big city and realized I was that close to Dallas. So I looked at my watch and it was almost 5pm. I broke out in a cold sweat and had to pull over to get my bearings. I remembered NOTHING from the entire day's drive, even though I must have eaten lunch and gotten more gas. No drugs or alcohol involved! :shock:

[gh]

oh, i thought this was a thread about just about everything the networks offered up this fall (except Flash Forward of course!).

[gh]

Dave Ross of CBS Radio this afternoon said he had the perfect solution to guarantee that no pilot ever falls asleep ever again: "make them fly in a seat from economy class; nobody can sleep in those!"

Then he added, "especially row 37, right next to the galley where you can hear the stews fighting over who has to go wake the captain."

[Rye Catcher]

Alien abduction and deep body probes. That explains it all.

[Rye Catcher]

The answer is now in, the pilots were on their laptops rather than paying attention. I felt better when it appeared alien abduction was the reason.

[TrakFan]

Heated discussion or laptops? They need to find a story and stick with it. :roll: The laptop theory is pretty bold since forensic guys can determine the type of activity that would have been occurring on those laptops during the time they over-shot their original destination. Were they really browsing schedules, or were the machines completely idle/turned off

[lonewolf]

Some talking heads are insinuating the pilots may have been distracted by lap dances instead of lap tops.

[Marlow]

The answer is now in, the pilots were on their laptops rather than paying attention..

Yeah, I was on Facebook and saw one of their last updates:

"We're not sure where we are, but I think we're making GREAT time. LOL! "

[tandfman]

The laptop theory is pretty bold since forensic guys can determine the type of activity that would have been occurring on those laptops during the time they over-shot their original destination.

They could? Somebody could take my laptop and figure out what I was doing on it during a specific hour a day or two ago? That's news to me.

[Marlow]

The laptop theory is pretty bold since forensic guys can determine the type of activity that would have been occurring on those laptops during the time they over-shot their original destination.

They could? Somebody could take my laptop and figure out what I was doing on it during a specific hour a day or two ago? That's news to me.

Your computer keeps a 'History' file of where you've been and when you were there. Have you never used it to find a link address you've forgotten?

[tandfman]

Your computer keeps a 'History' file of where you've been and when you were there. Have you never used it to find a link address you've forgotten?

Isn't that limited to internet access? You're assuming they were accessing something on the web. From what they were describing, it could well have been that they were working with a program that they had previously downloaded and that they weren't logged on to the web at all. If that's the case, I don't know that the computer would have a record of it.

In any event, the answer to your question is that I almost never use that function. When in doubt, I usually just ask Mr. G for help.