Do two distracted Northwest pilots portend a frightening breakdown in air safety?
No. Plus: A personal note By Patrick Smith Oct. 30, 2009 | I know what you’re wondering. How could a pair of experienced airline pilots allow their $50 million Airbus A320 to wander 150 miles off course, totally overflying its destination, before realizing the error and cowering back to land. So it went, for reasons not yet understood, with a Northwest Airlines flight from San Diego to Minneapolis last Wednesday. To this point, what we know for sure is that one way or another the pilots became distracted. They bypassed Minneapolis and fell out of radio contact with air traffic control for nearly an hour. When the story first broke, the pilots had reportedly been involved in a heated discussion — something about company policy — that diverted their attention and caused them to bypass Minneapolis. A few days later the story changed. Now the pilots claim to have been working on their personal laptop computers, going over their schedules. I’m the first to admit that it doesn’t look good.
