Stray jet's pilots were on laptops

US plane had overshot its destination by 240 km last week

US plane had overshot its destination by 240 km last week

Two Northwest Airlines pilots have told federal investigators that they were going over schedules using their laptop computers in violation of company policy while their plane overflew their Minneapolis destination by 150 miles (240 km), the National Transportation Safety Board said yesterday.

The pilots Richard Cole of Oregon, the first officer, and Timothy Cheney of Washington, the captain had said earlier that they were not fatigued and didn't fall asleep.

Instead, Cole and Cheney told investigators that they both had their laptops out while the first officer, who had more experience with scheduling, instructed the captain on monthly flight crew scheduling.

Out of touch for 1 hr

Disgraced: Northwest Airlines First Officer Richard Cole outside his home in Oregon. He denied earlier reports that said there wasu00a0 in-flight sleeping or fighting.

The pilots were out of communication with air traffic controllers and their airline for more than an hour and didn't realise their mistake until contacted by a flight attendant, the board said.

Many aviation safety experts had said it was more plausible that the pilots had fallen asleep during the cruise phase of their flight last Wednesday night than that they had become so focused on a conversation that they lost awareness of their surroundings for such a lengthy period of time.

Air traffic controllers in Denver and Minneapolis repeatedly tried without success to raise the pilots of the San Diego-to-Minneapolis flight by radio.

Other pilots in the vicinity tried reaching the plane on other radio frequencies. Their airline tried contacting them using a radio text message that chimes.

Authorities became so alarmed that National Guard jets were readied for takeoff at two locations and the White House Situation Room alerted senior White House officials, who monitored Northwest Flight 188 with its 144
passengers and five crew members as the Airbus A320 flew across a broad swath of the mid-continent completely out of contact with anyone on the ground.

"It's inexcusable," said former NTSB Chairman Jim Hall. "I feel sorry for the individuals involved, but this was certainly not an innocuous event this was a significant breach of aviation safety and aviation security."

Experienced pilots

Cheney and Cole are both experienced pilots, according to the NTSB. Cheney (53) was hired by Northwest in 1985 and has about 20,000 hours of flying time, about half of which was in the A320.

Cole had about 11,000 hours of flight time, including 5,000 hours on the A320.