One of the latest news stories that is getting a lot of air time especially in our area is the Northwest airline flight that was going to Minneapolis that overshot the airport by 150 miles and had to turn around. It sure got my attention!!! Especially since I had just flown a NWA flight from SFO to Minneapolis a couple of days before! So….no one could get hold of the pilots in the cockpit, there was no contact for over an hour and finally a flight attendant was the one who was able to get them to respond. Several theories have been postulated—pilot fatigue, they were arguing, they were distracted (you think??) and finally the truth begins to come out. They were using their laptops and were unaware of their location —time got away from them!!! YIKES!

Okay so a few questions here:
Why did the flight attendants not know that they were supposed to be landing and they weren’t?? They knew the flight time, they knew what the departure time was and what the arrival time should be. Why did they not wonder why they were not getting the call to ready the cabin for arrival?

With all the technology today I find it hard to imagine that the pilots did not get some kind of “communication” from the autopilot system telling them it was almost time to land! Come on, now. From what I have read a lot of the flying is just automated these days and the pilots just kind of hang out. well, obviously these guys were hanging out.

I heard someone liken this to texting while driving but worse and I think that is pretty accurate!! Here you have 2 guys who have responsibility for around 150 lives and they are taking that way too lightly. They are distracted and probably more often than not fatigued to the point that they are incapable of making great decisions.

I think the tip of the iceberg is showing and as the investigation continues we will find out more horrors of flying–not what I want to hear since Chris flies almost weekly! And NWA / Delta is the normal airline we use. Hopefully this will be a wake up call to the industry —flying has become such a hassle these days with security and surly, yes I said surly, flight attendants who don’t offer much help when it comes to passenger customer service. I am amazed how flyers are treated some times! Crazy!!! As I told my seatmate on the last trip “I try to kill them with kindness and make them feel guilty for being so nasty!”!!!! I know they are tired! A lot of people are. But come on folks, take your job seriously and make it as nice for the passengers as you can!

Enough of my airline tirade—sorry but it just rankles me to see the coverage on something that never should have happened. I will put it to rest now…..till I see the next news report on it!