Northwest pilots blame air traffic controllers

[MercutioATC]

" WASHINGTON — The Northwest Airlines pilots who overshot Minneapolis have blamed air traffic controllers in part for the incident, saying controllers violated procedures.

Capt. Timothy Cheney, 54, of Gig Harbor, Wash., and First Officer Richard Cole, 54, of Salem, Ore., said in documents filed Nov. 24 with the National Transportation Safety Board that controllers didn't follow rules and practices contained in the Federal Aviation Administration's air traffic control manual and didn't coordinate effectively with Northwest dispatchers. The documents don't offer any details on those violations.

Cheney and Cole are appealing the Federal Aviation Administration's revocation of their pilots' licenses. The pair were out of radio contact for 77 minutes on Oct. 21 as their plane carrying 144 passengers flew more than 100 miles past Minneapolis. The Airbus A320 was over Wisconsin before controllers were able to re-establish contact.

The pilots later told authorities they had been working on crew scheduling on their laptops and didn't realize they had missed their destination until a flight attendant using an intercom asked when the flight would be landing."

Looks like they're just throwing shit and hoping something sticks somewhere. At least they've finally come up with an "explanation" of what distracted them, causing them to stop listening to ATC and overfly their destination by 100 miles...

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/top/all/6757460.html

[NightWatcher]

1. they should have radio-ed them a wake up call

ground control to Major Tom, commencing landing WAKE UP

[CreekDog]

2. Well that's rich

:wtf: :eyes:

[MineralMan]

3. Jimmy did it! Jimmy did it! It's Jimmy's fault, Mom!

[NYC_SKP]

4. Hmmm. And Tiger Woods made his wife beat him. Not that we know she did. Yet.

Anyway, this is a new level of blame the victim.

Epic Fail.

[A HERETIC I AM]

5. I have some further information on this incident you might find interesting...

I received this via a group I am a member of and I thought it interesting enough to share.

I am going to remove some names within this message in order to protect the identity of the individual who wrote it, but it offers some insight into this incident that, as far as I know, has not made it into the public discussion on this event.

Words in parenthesis are my additions

From a Northwest friend.
kf

Having flown with Tim, this is in line with the man and the pilot I know,
moreso than anything else that has emerged. The WSJ piece is more damaging
to the FAA than any news piece heretofore.

Some normal, Boeing supplied equipment is sadly lacking on Airbus, which is
unacceptable, to me. Moving throttles, lack of any warning light for
cross-inputs of primary flight controls AND no chime for incoming datalink
are a start on a degraded safety design list.

.

I don't know who (name removed) or (name removed) are, but I can believe the scenario. There
for the grace of God could have I have gone. I missed many a radio call in
my career and any airline pilot that says they haven't are delusional. Get
some chimes or bells on the 320 for safety sake.
(name removed)

This was passed along to me and thought you all might find it very
interesting reading considering the press stopped following this story once
these guys lost their licenses. I have flown with (name removed) a number of times and
can also say he is a great guy. One of my favorite guys to fly with.

(name removed)

Now for the rest of the story.....

Hi All,

I had a one hour conversation with Tim Cheney (the pilot of the aircraft in question) yesterday and would like to
shed some light on what happened to cause the over flight of their
destination, MSP.

Before I begin with details, I wanted to say right up front that although
there are many events that helped to cause this, Tim takes full
responsibility and places no blame on anyone but himself. He is very humbled
by what has happened and fully understands that as captain, he was
responsible for the a/c, crew and passengers. That said, he wanted me to
know how it all happened. Secondly, he has the full support of his neighbors
in Gig Harbor, WA, as well has his church parishioners. One of his neighbors
wrote a letter to the Star & Tribune in Minneapolis saying how great a
family the Cheney's were, I agree.

On their flight from San Diego to Minneapolis, after passing Denver, the f/a
called the cockpit to let them know Tim's crew meal was ready. Tim was the
"flying pilot" on this leg, so he told his F/O that when the f/a brings the
meal up, he will step back to use the restroom. When Tim returned, the F/A
left the cockpit and he began to eat his crew meal. When a pilot leaves to
use the restroom, it is customary for the other pilot to brief him on his
return on "any changes", such as altitude, heading, course changes or atc
center frequency changes, etc. In this instance, nothing was said....even
though the f/o had received a frequency change. The problem that occurred
was that the f/o never got a response on the new frequency... .it was not the
correct frequency... .it was a Winnipeg Canada Center Freq.

Now, Denver Center is trying to get a hold of them because they never
checked in, because the f/o had dialed in the wrong freq......that is who
called them so many times....but, then there was a shift change at Denver
Center and no one briefed the new controller that there was a NORDO A/C (non
communications) in their airspace.... so, in actuality, atc basically "lost"
this a/c.....see Wall Street Journal article below.

Tim told me he heard atc chatter on the speaker and so never thought they
were out of radio range.....but, of course, they were hearing pilots talk on
Winnipeg Center. For non-pilots.. ...when we dont hear anything for a long
while...we ask atc if they are still there....sometimes they are and
sometimes you are out of their area and need to find a new frequency. With
this chatter going on, there was no concern that they were not being
controlled.

Then Tim told the f/o that the new bidding system was horrible and that his
November schedule was not what he hoped for. He mentioned that his son was
going into the Army in Dec. and he wanted certain days off so he could see
him off.....the f/o said he could help him, he knew more about the new
bidding system. Tim got his lap top out and put it on his left leg and
showed the f/o how he bid. He told me he had his lap top out for maybe 2
minutes. Then the f/o said that he would show him how to do it on his
laptop. He had his laptop out maximum of 5 minutes.

Let's also add the 100 kt tail wind that they had to the discussion, not
helping matters.

The f/a's called the cockpit on the interphone(no they did not kick the
door, no, no one was sleeping, no, no one was fighting) and asked when they
will get there. They looked at their nav screens and were *directly over MSP
*. Because they had their screens set on the max, 320 kt setting, when the
f/o called on the frequency, which of course was Winnipeg Center, he saw Eau
Claire and Duluth on his screen. They asked where they were and the f/o told
them over Eau Claire, which was not even close, but MSP had disappeared from
the screen even though they were right over the city.

They were, as you all know, vectored all over the sky to determine if they
had control of the a/c and Tim kept telling the f/o to tell them they have
control they want to land at MSP, etc. They landed with 11,000 pounds of
fuel (no they did not come in on fumes, but had 2 hours in an A320) and not
but 15 minutes past schedule, even though they left San Diego 35 minutes
late due to an atc flow restriction.

In the jet-way awaiting them were FBI and every other authority you can
imagine.

*Aftermath and tidbits*

Although these pilots filed an NASAP Report, which was designed to have
pilots tell the truth about events, so the FAA could learn from them, they
had their licenses revoked by the ATL F.A.A. even before they came out of
their meeting with NTSB and NASAP meetings.

ATL FAA is really big on this new regulation which will allow pilots to take
a short nap in flight so they will be rested for the approach...they were
insistent that they were sleeping.

MSP FAA, Vance -do not know last name- was the person who handed Tim his
revocation letter(which was leaked to the entire world by the ATL FAA). Tim
said Vance had tears in his eyes and walked away, said nothing. It was later
learned that the entire MSP FAA office did not agree at all with revoking
their pilot's licenses, but had no jurisdiction over the matter, since ATL
FAA had control because of Delta.

The pilots have been to Wash. D.C., ATL and MSP for several meetings. In
ATL, they met with the chief pilots and Tim said they could not have been
nicer. They are working to resolve this, not to try and fire them. But of
course, they will have to get their license back for Delta to consider
allowing them to continue flying. The appeal has been files for the FAA to
reinstate their licenses or to settle on some form of punishment, etc.

When Tim and his wife were in MSP for a meeting with the NTSB, they happen
to be staying at the same hotel as the NTSB was. The next morning in the
lobby, the NTSB official came over to Tim and said he did not know why they
even called them in for this event. There was no safety issue. Also, MSP
Center informed Delta that there never was a problem and no aircraft were
near their plane. Even though no radio communications, they had been
followed and separated.

Yes, the company tried to contact them on ACARS, but the 320 does not have a
chime...it has a 30 second light which then extinguishes.
Tim always has 121.5 tuned, but as we all know as pilots, it can get very
noisy at times and we turn it down and sometimes forget to turn it back on.
He told me this may have been the case.

So there were so many factors which helped to cause this episode. Anyone
would have likely prevented it.....properly checking in on the new frequency
would have been the first one.....

A note about laptops..... in NWA's A.O.M -I think it stands for airman's
operation manual-, it does not say we can't use a laptop, however in Delta's
A.O.M., it does, we are transitioning now and we actually have pages from
both airlines. When our union showed this to the attorney's, they could not
believe the confusion put on our pilot group. But, D.C. F.A.A. put out a new
possible ruling which will disallow all laptops..... .so stupid, don't they
know Jet Blue has laptops on every aircraft and soon all airliners will for
the electronic Jepp charts.

These are the facts and again, Tim said he feels very bad for the company
and the pilots and is hoping for a positive outcome on their appeal. With 24
years at NWA, 21,000 blemish free hours, it would be a mistake to ruin his
career over this in my opinion.

Thank you,