Plane flies 150 miles past its destination when pilots used their laptops in flight

Two pilots from Northwest Airlines on Flight 188 from San Diego to Minneapolis apparently got so engrossed in their laptops that they overshot their destination runway by 150 miles.

According to the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) report, Captain Timothy Cheney 53, and First Officer Richard Cole 54, only became aware that they were way off schedule and flying over the state of Wisconsin instead when a flight attendant entered the cockpit and asked what time they were supposed to be landing.

The pilots were out of contact with air traffic control for more than hour so of course we’re all wondering what on earth they were doing on their laptops. Must have been good whatever it was.

There is some speculation that they are using their laptops as an excuse for the lack of contact when in reality they actually fell asleep, or were having a dispute. The thought that they were using laptops while ignoring traffic control seems out of the question to some, particularly Airline expert Arthur Alan Wolk who’s reported as saying the very idea is preposterous.

“You can’t sit on a laptop and ignore air traffic controllers constantly trying to raise you on the radio,” he said in one news story.

“And it’s not just one air traffic controller, he’s giving you one frequency change. There’ll be another one 15 minutes later with another frequency change.

“You can’t sit in an aeroplane cockpit and do nothing for an hour and 20 minutes, it’s simply not possible” he said.

Well I don’t know about that but I do know that when I’m using my laptop I can shut out pretty much anything, whilst flying a plane though, that’s a different matter.

Captain Cole denies that they fell asleep even though there was radio silence from the pilots for more than an hour.

“Nobody fell asleep, nobody had an argument, nobody had a fight. Other than that I can’t tell you anything,” he said.

So what about the law, is it legal to use a laptop whilst flying a plane?

Apparently there is no law banning laptops in the cockpit when the plane is flying above 10,000 feet. However, it is against policy for many airlines.

“Using laptops or engaging in activity unrelated to the pilots’ command of the aircraft during flight, is strictly against the airline’s flight deck policies and violations of that policy will result in termination,” said a statement issued by Delta.

Needless to say, both the pilots from Northwest Airlines have had their licenses revoked by the FAA.

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