Pilots too busy with laptops to remember flight path, go 150 miles off course
By Ross Miller 
posted Oct 27th 2009 1:11AM
posted Oct 27th 2009 1:11AM
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in!]
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How much do you want to bet it's porn?
Well, for once it's not about them being drunk.
I guess it deserve some kind of medal.
Yeah, I just googled "airline crew flight scheduling procedure.", that thing is freaking hot!
Pilots are horribly underpaid....they were probably looking at the want ads for a second or third job to pay the bills.
seriously...
they were on facebook.
Guys Guys...
it was Obviously Microsoft Flight Simulator!
oh right, I kind of overlooked the picture.
now i just feel dumb
"Pilots are horribly underpaid" ??
Fire fighters are horribly under paid.
School teachers are horribly underpaid.
A commercial pilot with over 20 years on the job makes up to about $150k. Horribly underpaid? I disagree.
------------------------------------------------
http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Commercial_Pilot/Salary
I am horribly underpaid...
whats up Minneapolis!
All the pilots I know (two commercial, three FedEx and one UPS) are all of the opinion that the pilots were sleeping, not "distracted" as they claim. When you have a cockpit screaming at you with nav beacon warnings, automated nav system warnings, radio calls from multiple control towers, and text messages, there is no way in hell they could have been awake at the time.
They were watching "Lost"
I see what I did there. At least they didn't crash te plane
@ michael
yes I agree that many occupations are underpaid. But that payscale site is just a poll of 83 pilots. A pilot with 1-4 years exp. can ear between 26 and 66 thousand while a pilot with more than 20 years exp. can earn between 60 and 151 thousand.
I wish there was a better information out there but i guess the airline industry doesn't want knowledge of how much or little they pay out in the open.
read this one for another opinion
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/17/nyregion/17pilot.html
When I read about these two pilots, 'underpaid' is not the word that comes to mind.
me neither NHAnimator
I was just trying to say that maybe if it was a higher paying job more people would be entering the field and then airlines could choose to have the best pilots your money can buy.
who knows maybe these two wouldn't have jobs if that were they way it was or would be guaranteed that they'll never fly again, but more than likely they'll be fired and end up working for a discount or smaller company.
Being underpaid/overpaid depends on whether your a pilot for a Low Cost Carrier or a Legacy Carrier and whether your flying an A320 or a Boeing 777. If you work for a company like Jet Blue or Southwest, you are substituting a good corporate culture, for the higher paycheck.
High end:
Avg. for a Boeing 777 pilot: 78hrs a month and over 11 years of work is greater than $22,000 a month. Do the math and thats well over $250,000 a year.
Avg for a Airbus A320 (JetBlue) pilot: 80hrs per month and over 11 years of work (actually once you get over 5 years the pay does not increase) is $8,000 a month. Huge difference, but both get paid well.
Source: U.S. Airlines Salary Survey and Career Earnings Comparison
I heard they were sexing!
whole new meaning to Macbook Air....
all right, its microsoft flight simulator!
*nostalgia begins*
*sigh*
:3
Yeah, Flight Simulator screenshot FTW.
I can't even begin to wrap my head around this. I work in radio and it's practically the end of the world if I get distracted and have 3 seconds of dead-air... Now, if I were responsible for 300 lives and got so distracted that I went 150 miles PAST my airport - well, that just blows my mind. Can I assume these guys will lose their jobs?
Yeah... I hope they lose their jobs.
These pilots are the exact opposite of Captain Sully Sullenberger...
yup but even Sully Sullenberger testified that you can't recruit the best if you pay pilots horribly.
Corporate america always defends executive's high salaries by saying it's necessary to retain the best, but airlines pay their pilots poorly and cut their pensions.
No wonder pilots like Sully are a dying breed...
At the cruising speed of an A320 (564 miles an hour). they would have had to been distracted for 26 minutes - if they were actually traveling at cruising speed.
Ridiculous.
@calgaryalta:
Wow. I bet you must be a pilot! And from what I gathered from your repetitive comments, a horribly underpaid one at that. Maybe you should trade your $150k/yr + bonuses doing a job that operates itself 98% of the time for something better.
P.S: Are you by any chance flying a plane right now while you're reading this?
@ Richard S.
lol funny guy ;) or...
...sorry to upset you, I just want my pilots highly trained and well paid when I'm a passenger.
@dantaylor08
I'm guessing it was less than 26 minutes. It's not like you can burn a u-turn at the next alley when you realize you overshot your target. They probably contacted ATC, and were directed to a point downrange from the airport where they could commence their turnaround.
I think his point was that pilots are well paid right now, making 100-150K on average. That's as much as a top flight programmer or analyst would make. So if you're a bright student thinking about his future, you could choose CPSC, where you know that you'll spend a long time in cubicle hell as you work your way up the corporate world to maybe reach topflight developer status (10-15 years) and make 80-120k, or you could go to flight school, spend 5 years on the job and have a good chance of making 100k+. On top of that, you get to travel all over the country/world.
I think a reason not to do it is that it would take you away from your family more than most other jobs. Otherwise, there isn't much downside.
Actually was closer to an hour. The flight crew were out of communication for an hour.
They should have checked in with Minneapolis approach control at least 30 minutes before they passed over the airport at cruising altitude. They would also have started their descent to merge with teh traffic control pattern about 10-15 minutes before landing.
So it is much worse then it sounds.
Good thing that their is air traffic control to prevent mid-air collisions, since the crew wasn't paying attention. Of course, ATC wouldn't have contacted them to prevent a mid-air collision, because the pilots never bothered to retune their radios to a Minneapolis frequency once they checked out of Denver's air space. Time for a new career for someone. Even the union won't let this one fly by.
@joel:
I agree on the pay aspect of your comment, but in terms of "you get to travel all over the country/world", this isn't all that it's cracked up to be. It's definitely cool at first, but frequent travel gets old quickly. You aren't going on vacation with family or friends. The hours, time zone changes, hotels, hotel/restaurant food, living out of a suitcase, etc. wears on you. Spending the evening in a hotel room is not the same as spending the evening at home. Not to mention the strain from being away from your wife/children/friends.
As someone who spent a lot of time flying around the country/world for business, I was really happy to settle back down into the office. I was well compensated, but the job was definitely draining. Add to that the immense responsibility that pilots have, and the pay has to be extremely good if the airline industry wants to retain pilots in the long term.
Not that these 2 jokers deserve their jobs - they are paid well because there are high expectations placed on them. They obviously failed to meet those expectations.
I think the issue with the pay comments is this:
WHY do you think that pilots are underpaid?? I say that fire fighters are underpaid because their jobs are RIDICULOUSLY hard and it takes a very special breed of human being to do that job (or even to have the desire to do that job.)
Being a pilot isn't particularly that difficult.
It takes training, yes; but so does being an accountant.
They're responsible for transporting passengers and responsible for their safety in transit; but so are cab drivers.
I think a lot of people who are making $25k doing laborious jobs are a little tired of hearing about all the other people out there who are "underpaid" while they make six times as much.
(And, no, I'm not one of those people. My job is pretty easy if you have the right training, and I'm paid well enough for it.) I guess I'm just saying that "under paid" is a VERY relative term in most circumstances.
ahh flight simulator... frustrating, yet so fun.
but they can still use ad-hoc wifi to fight a 1-vs-1
"OMG FLIGHT SIMULATOR IS MY FAVORITE GAME!!1"
and then i punch him in the head and say, "this isnt a game little girl, this is real life"
if they had access to WoW, man would have finally landed on mars.
or on the moon, depending on what you believe ;P
If they were playing WoW they would have ended up in Outlands you noobtards.
Old MS Flight Simulators will forever remind me of what a dick Richard M. Daley is.
I lol'd at the WoW reference.
going an uldar run, you coming?
DPS LFG H ToC
Leeeeeeeerooooy Jeeenkiiiiiinss!
lol
i think you mean "how far OFF"
I think you mean "I".
i'm not "journalist" writing for a major blog read by 0.3% of the internet (which ranks them at 355 according to Alexa).
damnit. "i'm the THE 'journalist.'"
my point still stands though.
You, sir, are crazy. First you're not journalist, then you're the THE journalist! Make up your mind.
God that pic takes me back. I don't care what you say, that pixelated skyline warms my heart.
Well that's 2 less pilots that need to bitch about Delta's new post-merger seniority list
(horrible joke....sorry, but I'm an aviation enthusiast)
You sound more like an aviation-industry enthusiast than an aviation enthusiast.
Great show of playing with life. This is shameful........
Highest CD Rates
lol'd at the old skool MSFS pic :D
I'd think that would violate the FAA's "Sterile Cockpit Rule" but it wouldn't show up on the black box voice recorder. Well, maybe it would pick up the clicking of the typing on the keyboard. Still, it has to be in violation of the existing rules to leave the plane on autopilot and use a laptop (doesn't matter what the laptop is being used for).
Nah, it's fine as long as you put it in airplane mode. Everyone knows that.
that picture brings back so many good memories
Is this because Steve Ballmer said he used his laptop to look for WiFi close to landing?
What a load a crap. You can't overfly your destination AND not notice air traffic controllers are trying to raise you like that, unless you were sleeping. How else do 2 commercial airline pilots remain situationally unaware that they've overflown their destination, ATC is repeatedly trying to reach them, and company dispatchers are sending them messages for so long? What else could it be, crazy gay cockpit sex!? Ewww, that would give a whole new meaning to the word "cockpit". LOL
Notice that it said 150 miles off course, not past the destination. They just forgot to make a turn, or drifted off to one side.
Ahem, No your completely wrong. Notice how the flight path passes directly over the airport and keeps right on going... they weren't "off course". They just blew right over their destination and kept of flying. When they realized what happened they hung a 180 and flew back to the airport making several ATC directed turns along the way.
http://flightwise.com/news/348/Northwest_Airlines_flight_188_3D_Track.html
These guys are pulling every string they can to NOT admit that they fell asleep.
C'mon man you can leave a laptop on and be asleep. It's probably a back up for when you fall asleep.
20 Quatloons says they fell the F asleep.
LMAO.... this is just insane. I can't read anymore or i'll get distracted and crash the plane i am flying right now.
Oops... I missed my landing strip, maybe i'll shoot for the next one.
Rgr, Signing out.
WIFI off.
Sound like a petty excuse since almost all the course is done using the automatic pilot and 78 minutes is too much time for slip because a pilot decided to use the computer.
And in the worst case, one pilot can miss the deadline but two?.
I just had a CORNCOB 3D flashback.
Why are pilots allowed to bring laptops onto a plane in the first place? They certainly don't need them in the course of their work. All the computer stuff they need is right in front of them in the cockpit. Their job is to fly the plane, not play video games or look at porn. I say, "Fire 'em!"
I've flown in the jump seat on commercial aircraft enough times to realize how incredibly boring it is up in the cockpit. It's like driving a bus for 20 minutes on takeoff and 20 minutes on landing. Other than that, it's like sitting in front of a desk with nothing to do.
My vote has been with "sleeping" since the story broke.
Ahhh, Meigs.
T___T
"The voice recorder is capable of recording only 30 minutes of audio"
Seriously.. how about we update that with this century's technology, we should be able to record 30 days of audio.
AFK gots to land plane, brb
Maybe it wasn't the pilots fault. Maybe someone back in the coach section was talking on their cell phone!!!!
Hey you! Stop that! Don't you know that using an electronic device can interfere with the planes navigation system! Damn, now see what you've done!
People always talk about talking on cell phones while flying... I, personally, have NEVER EVER had any kind of service up in the air. No matter the carrier, no matter the device, no matter the airline, no matter the region. Never had service. So how do all these other people (including those on 9/11) make calls from cell phones in the air? I don't get it.
Well, it should be easy enough to find out what the true story is. Just fire up their laptops and do a search by date modified and see what files were changed during the time they were flying past the destination. Also check teh log files. There is certainly enough info that a computer forensics guy could tell if hte machine was running at that time.
As far as the total time they were not paying attention, it has to be way more than just 26 minutes as they would have had to start talking to the next control facility well before the time they were to land.
It was 78 minutes of radio silence. It's totally unbelievable that the two pilots could be awake and situationally unaware for that long. Something like 10 different air traffic controllers along their route had no luck contacting them.
I fly flight 188 ever time I go home to visit my parents, probably had these same pilots this past summer
This "using a laptop" story is a load of crap. These pilots figured they'd cook up a story that the FAA couldn't disprove that would result in a much lesser penalty than the truth, which is that they were both sleeping.
Go visit www.pprune.org. This is a forum where real commercial pilots chat. They all know the realities of being in a cockpit and are pretty certain the truth is far different than what is being reported.
A laptop might distract a pilot for 5 or 10 minutes, but not 75 minutes. You don't completely ignore the instruments and radio for that long, unless you are sleeping or dead.
yes let's make it very clear. Most commercial pilots are not 'horribly underpaid'. This is a misconception that needs to go away. Does anyone here remember the 60 minutes story about teachers that actually showed numbers, went to demonstrations etc. They were showing teachers who were earning $60k+ in the midwest, get 3 months vacation a year, who were protesting their terrible salaries, threatening going on strike. And, most important, they believed they were being abused by the system. It was stunning.
Most teachers don't make $60k. My father has been a public school teacher with his Masters for over 20 years with the same state/district. He earns less than $50k. Teachers are the most important resource we have, save for the children themselves. Teachers SHOULD earn a lot of money, and we should demand an extremely high standard of them (which would be reasonable if the pay were high.)
Without teachers we have no pilots, physicists, doctors, lawyers, or any other skilled profession. It's a fact.
Woo Hoo!
Flight Sim 4! (for DOS) I still play it!
Work scheduling software. Yeah. Sure.
See:
http://notionscapital.wordpress.com/2009/10/27/distracted-flying/
If anything American teachers should make as much as pilots do. They should also have to live up to stricter standards to maintain their teaching accreditation. This would address good teachers leaving the profession for something more lucrative, as well as weed out the crappier ones.