Didn’t doze – just argued...

Federal officials are now working to determine out whether the two pilots dozed off or were simply distracted. The pilots deny falling asleep, telling law-enforcement officials who interviewed them upon landing in Minneapolis, and later publicly stating  that they had been engaged in a "heated discussion over airline policy and they lost situational awareness."

That must have been quite an argument.  And, doesn’t it really make you feel much safer?  Two pilots losing all touch with the present and ignoring their job responsibilities and the safety of a plane load of passengers for over an hour while they argued about their job policies.

Well maybe not...

One of the two pilots, first officer Richard Cole, has subsequently said an argument was not to blame.

“All I’m saying is we were not asleep; we were not having a fight; there was nothing serious going on in the cockpit that would threaten the people in the back at all,” he told The Associated Press.

Cole declined to discuss what exactly happened but said “it was not a serious event, from a safety issue.”

“I can’t go into it, but it was innocuous.”

Post 9/11 that is about as ridiculous a statement as can be made given the situation.

As the plane flew through the night with no response to either air traffic controllers in two states, or pilots of other aircraft who also attempted to alert the cockpit, on the ground National Guard jets at two separate locations, prepared to go up after them. 

“Controllers have a heightened sense of vigilance when we’re not able to talk to an aircraft. That’s the reality post-9/11,” said Doug Church, a spokesman for the National Air Traffic Controllers Association.

Cole and flight captain, Timothy Cheney (!) were “cooperative, apologetic and appreciative.” They volunteered to take preliminary breath tests that were zero for alcohol use. The lead flight attendant told police she was unaware of any incident during the flight.

Suspensions and investigations 

The pilots, have both been temporarily suspended, and will be interviewed by National Transportation Safety Board investigators.  The airline is also investigating.

Officials suspect Flight 188’s radio might still have been tuned to a frequency used by Denver controllers even though the plane had flown beyond their reach.  Controllers worked throughout the incident with the pilots of other planes, asking them to try to raise Flight 188 using the Denver frequency.

Bill Voss, president of the Flight Safety Foundation said a special concern was that the many safety checks built into the aviation system to prevent incidents like this — or to correct them quickly — apparently were ineffective until the very end.

Not only couldn’t air traffic controllers and other pilots raise the Northwest pilots for an hour, but the airline’s dispatcher should have been trying to reach them as well. The three flight attendants onboard should have questioned why there were no preparations for landing being made.

Brightly lit cockpit displays should have warned the pilots it was time to land. Despite cloudy conditions, the lights of Minneapolis should have clued them in that they’d reached their destination, aviation experts said.

“It’s probably something you would say never would happen if this hadn’t just happened,” Voss said.

Let's get real

But let’s be realistic. Even if all of those things coulda-woulda-shoulda happened, what were the pilots doing or discussing, that so consumed their attention? It is still the pilots’ ultimate responsibility to be in control of their flight and the safety of their passengers.  They are at work, not at a backyard barbeque, or on a fishing trip.  They are supposed to be focused, and on their game. 

Dozing, sleeping, arguing, whatever...it is impossible to see what excuse can possibly made for behaviour that might be justifiably termed sloppy, careless and dangerous.

Passengers were not aware of the problem.  Delta said Friday it plans to give flight vouchers worth a few hundred dollars to each of the passengers.