Why hasn't NW188 decended yet?

Much like the rest of the country, I’m confused about what really happened on Northwest Airlines (Delta) Flight 188 from San Diego to Minneapolis.

For those that might not have heard, the pilots were having a “heated” discussion about company policy and procedure and were distracted enough that they managed to fly over the Minneapolis airport by 150 miles. However, there have been mixed reports about what actually happened from within the aircraft cabin.

Initial reports stated that the passengers and the cabin crew didn’t even realize that they had flown over their destination. As the day progressed, stories began to change. FOX9 in Minneapolis quoted a passenger on board the aircraft as saying

A couple of people I overheard said I thought we were landing at 8 or 8:15…That was where it was a little bit different. The captain came on and said after some back and forth bickering, we should be landing in 15 to 20 minutes.

That story contradicts what The Star Tribune, also in Minneapolis, reported

Brent Bjorlin and his fellow airline passengers didn’t have a clue something had gone wrong at 37,000 feet until federal officials with badges and guns boarded the Northwest plane after it landed in the Twin Cities on Wednesday night.

I can only assume that Brent wasn’t sitting near Amy. Anyway, the burning question remains: what finally made the pilots realize they overshot the runway, and what were they doing before hand? According to the Associated Press controllers on the ground, pilots of other planes, and even a flight attendant tried to alert the flight deck as the Northwest airliner flew past Minneapolis at 37,000 feet.

Many articles and blogs quickly jumped to say that a flight attendant wouldn’t know how far an aircraft was to their destination, and immediatly discounted that report. I say, not so fast.

Flight Attendants and Pilots are required by FAA regulations to have a pre-flight breifing before every flight. In this briefing, information such as flight time, weather enroute, and possible delays are relayed to the cabin crew. The flight time reported to the cabin crew is from “wheels up,” which means actual flying time from when the aircrafts wheels leave the ground. If the pilots tell me that the flight will be 5 hours and 30 minutes, the second the wheels are off the ground I calculate, to myself, our expected arrival time. Of course, things change and weather happens, however, it shouldn’t deviate that much. Though the flight attendants may not have known they flew past Minneapolis airport they may have realized that the flight is taking longer than expected and were calling the flight deck for an update. I call and ask the flight deck about every hour to check on them and our arrival time.

The Wall Street Journal is now reporting

According to the recollections of the Northwest crew, a flight attendant’s question on the intercom demanding to know why the jetliner hadn’t started its descent startled them out of their distracted state, according to one person familiar with the matter.

The Pilots of NW188 seem to be very stern saying that they weren’t sleeping, but I don’t believe them. Latest reports from interviews with the cockpit crew say that they were without radio contact for about an hour and fifteen minutes. Do you mean to tell me that you were so involved in an hour long conversation about company policy that you blocked out the radio in the background repeatly attempting to gain contact with you? Mind you, Pilots do have the ability to change the volume in which those transmissions are received, but what Pilot would knowingly turn the volume down to the level in which they cannot be heard, period.

I almost primarily fly the Airbus A320, the same model aircraft in this incident. When the cabin crew makes a phone call to the flight deck, the noise heard in the cockpit is very much like an alarm clock. It sounds almost like a digitized alarm / phone ringer and is annoyingly loud. It is very possible, in my view, that the phone call from the flight attendant questioning the time of decent woke up the pilots.

Many airlines have procedures in place to  have the cabin crew call the flight deck on a regular basis to ensure the pilots are okay, and to check on their needs. Procedures are also in place in the event contact between the cabin and the flight deck can not be obtained.

We need to remember that a situation with pilots sleeping happened just last year at Go! Airlines. The Official NTSB report determined that the pilots were fatigued. It might be time that the FAA step in and raise the limits for minimum rest on layovers. Remember, a crew members required rest begins from “aircraft door open” at  your arrival city until “aircraft door close” the next morning leaving that same city. It does NOT account for time passengers are getting off the plane, walking to the terminal door, getting in a van to the hotel, checking in, and/or eating. At the current time the “minimum” rest set by the FAA is 8 hours.

I truly hope that the truth surfaces during this investiagtion. We can only learn from our mistakes, and the result of this mistake, might save lives down the line.