Ron, I agree with your comments and find humor in what you are saying, but I totally disagree with y

In some ways, the latest update from the National Transportation Safety Board about Northwest Airlines Flight 188 from San Diego to Minneapolis confirms the worst fears: The pilots just plain weren t paying a lick of attention to flying the airplane.
The NTSB interviewed both pilots, both experienced aviators, who overflew MSP last week and said the captain and first officer say they had laptop computers out and were deep in discussion of a new crew scheduling system rental car insurance coverage launched by Northwest s parent, Delta Air Lines. The first officer was showing rental car insurance coverage the captain how the new system worked, and neither were listening to radio transmissions or even glancing at airplane instruments or messages from company dispatchers.
Neither pilot was aware of the plane s position, some 100 miles past their destination, until a flight attendant called and asked when they would land. The captain said, at that point, rental car insurance coverage he looked at his primary rental car insurance coverage flight display for an ETA and realized that they had passed MSP. They made contact with ATC (air-traffic control) and were given vectors back to MSP, the NTSB said in a statement.
Neither pilot said he was fatigued, and they d had a 19-hour layover in San Diego before Flight 188, their first flight of the day. The NTSB noted that use of personal laptop computers in the cockpit is a violation of company policy.
The Airbus A320 s cockpit voice recorder captured only 30 minutes, including time on the ground, and the recording began when the plane was on final approach. The investigation will continue rental car insurance coverage the safety board said it is interviewing flight attendants and other company personnel.
There s an old saying in aviation: Flying can be hours of boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror. Automation can make flying a jet a boring task set the autopilot and all you have to do is change radio frequencies as you cross the country.  Automation has made air travel safer, but complacency in the cockpit will lead to accidents.
rental car insurance coverage Error message Name We welcome thoughtful comments from readers. Please comply with our guidelines . Our blogs do not require the use of your real name. Comment Comments (5 of 45) View all Comments 2:01 am November 29, 2009 Ryan R. wrote :
Even though there is no excuse for the pilots not communicating they have served the country well. They proved that the US via the FAA and NTSB isn’t protecting us any better than on 9/11. The time that there was no communication with the Flt 188 pilots is longer than the time that the two planes took off and crashed into the World Trade Center on 9/11. No fighters rental car insurance coverage took off all during that time. Thus, as an emergency drill Flight 188 proved that we were unprotected rental car insurance coverage and that is just as we were on 9/11. A year prior to 9/11 we knew that hijacking was a major threat and blogs had planes crashing into the World Trade Center and assessing rental car insurance coverage the damage. The FAA and the NTSB did nothing then and allowed this known threat to materialize into an national disaster that killed 3000 people.
A year prior to 9/11 I spoke at the International Aviation Safety Association in New York about preventing decompression crashes like golfer Payne Stewart and hijacking from occuring. On November 13th of this year I spoke on these issues at the Advanced Aviation Manufacturing Conference in St. Augustine, Florida. rental car insurance coverage In that talk I also spoke of the Air France Flight 488 crash of an Airbus where the Black Boxes haven’t been recovered from the Atlantic. rental car insurance coverage The 9/11 crashes into the World Trade Center’s Black Boxes also have never been recovered.
The fact is that it easy to tranmit the data to the ground for safe ground storage and it also easy to prevent 9/11 if we have the will to do it and if the leaders of our nation are committed to accomplish this. This was possible prior to 9/11 and it is much easier to do now.
I win all sorts of awards at technical meetings and everyone asks why isn’t done. I lost a friend on a recurring air crash that I sent on a work assignment while I was Chief Engineer of Northrop s Electronics Division. The people who head our government and its aviation agencies have never lost anyone and that is the major reason for these crashes.
Ron, I agree with your comments and find humor in what you are saying, but I totally disagree with your characterization of SWA. Have you flown recently? ALL AIRLINES cater to the lowest common denominator. Southwest Airlines is the BEST carrier rental car insurance coverage out there. Always on time, no baggage fee, very convenient rental car insurance coverage and robust schedule, they go just about anywhere in the U.S and they,unlike all the others, actaully care about people. I feel more like cattle in the United or American terminal than I do at SWA.
These 2 pilots are just as human as you and I. Humans make mistakes. Don t condemn them before the investigation. Give them a chance to defend themselves, there may be other mitigating factors that you and I are not aware of..
You are 100 percent wrong pal! Everyone from the ground to the passengers to the flight crew were in danger! What if they ran out of fuel? What if they hit another aircraft? there is only 1,000 feet seperation at those altitudes! rental car insurance coverage But hey! Your the expert! What do I know? I am only a pilot that can t get an interview with Delta or Northwest! In fact with my flight hours and experience I got a letter from Northwest saying as impressive as my resume is, I was not accepted, please apply in six Months! Found out that they don t want experienced rental car insurance coverage pilots. They want people right out of flight school with little or no hours who still lives with Mom and Pop who can afford to make $17,000 a year. It s all about the Money folks! Who cares about my experience or clean safe record?
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