Northwest Airliner Overshot Minneapolis Airport By 150
Miles
In its continuing investigation of
an Airbus A320 that overflew the Minneapolis-St Paul
International/Wold-Chamberlain Airport (MSP), the National
Transportation Safety Board has developed the following factual
information:
On Wednesday, October 21, 2009, at 1756 MDT, an Airbus A320,
operating as Northwest Airlines (NWA) flight 188, became a NORDO
(no radio communications) flight at 37,000 feet. The flight was
operating as a Part 121 flight from San Diego International
Airport, San Diego, California (SAN) to MSP with 144 passengers, 2
pilots and 3 flight attendants.
Both pilots were interviewed separately by NTSB investigators
yesterday in Minnesota. The following is an overview of the
interviews:
- The first officer and the captain were interviewed for over 5
hours combined.
- The Captain, 53 years old, was hired in 1985. His total
flight time is about 20,000 hours, about 10,000 hours of A-320 time
of which about 7,000 was as pilot in command.
- The First Officer, 54 years old, was hired in 1997. His total
flight time is about 11,000 hours, and has about 5,000 hours on the
A-320.
- Both pilots said they had never had an accident, incident or
violation.
- Neither pilot reported any ongoing medical conditions.
- Both pilots stated that they were not fatigued.
They were both commuters, but they had a 19-hour layover in San
Diego just prior to the incident flight. Both said they did not
fall asleep or doze during the flight.
- Both said there was no heated argument.
- Both stated there was a distraction in the cockpit.
The pilots said there was a
concentrated period of discussion where they did not monitor the
airplane or calls from ATC even though both stated they heard
conversation on the radio. Also, neither pilot noticed messages
that were sent by company dispatchers. They were discussing
the new monthly crew flight scheduling system that was now in place
as a result of the
merger. The discussion began at cruise altitude. Both said they
lost track of time.
Each pilot accessed and used his personal laptop computer while
they discussed the airline crew flight scheduling procedure. The
first officer, who was more familiar with the procedure was
providing instruction to the captain. The use of personal
computers on the flight deck is prohibited by company policy.
Neither pilot was aware of the airplane's position until a flight
attendant called about 5 minutes before they were scheduled to land
and asked what was their estimated time of arrival (ETA).
The captain said, at that point, he looked at his primary flight
display for an ETA and realized that they had passed MSP.
They
made contact with ATC and were given vectors back to MSP. At cruise
altitude - the pilots stated they were using cockpit speakers to
listen to radio communications, not their headsets. When asked by
ATC what the problem was, they replied "just cockpit distraction"
and "dealing with company issues". Both pilots said there are no
procedures for the flight attendants to check on the pilots during
flight.
The Safety Board is interviewing the flight attendants and other
company personnel today. Air traffic control communications
have been obtained and are being analyzed.
Preliminary data from the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) revealed
the following:
- The CVR recording was 1/2 hour in length.
- The cockpit area microphone channel was not working during this
recording. However, the crew's headset microphones recorded
their conversations.
- The CVR recording began during final approach, and continued
while the aircraft was at the gate.
- During the hours immediately following the incident flight,
routine aircraft maintenance provided power to the CVR for a few
minutes on several occasions, likely recording over several minutes
of the flight.
The FDR captured the entire flight which contained several
hundred aircraft parameters including the portion of flight where
there was no radio communication from the flight crew.
Investigators are examining the recorded parameters to see if any
information regarding crew activity during the portion of flight
where radio contact was lost can be obtained.