Co-Pilot: Airport Overshoot "Innocuous"

Says He and Pilot Didn't Doze or Have Argument When Northwest Flight Flew Past Minneapolis; Doesn't Say What Did Happen

(CBS/AP)  Updated at 4:30 a.m. EDT

Were the pilots distracted? Catching up on their sleep? Federal investigators struggled to determine what the crew of a Northwest Airlines jetliner were doing at 37,000 feet as they sped 150 miles past their Minneapolis destination and military jets scrambled to chase them. Unfortunately, the cockpit voice recorder may not tell the tale.

A report released late Friday said the pilots passed breathalyzer tests and were apologetic after Wednesday night's amazing odyssey. They said they had been having a heated discussion about airline policy. But aviation safety experts and other pilots were frankly skeptical they could have become so consumed with shop talk that they forgot to land an airplane carrying 144 passengers.

The most likely possibility, they said, is that the pilots simply fell asleep somewhere along their route from San Diego.

"It certainly is a plausible explanation," said Bill Voss, president of the Flight Safety Foundation in Alexandria, Va.

But one of the two pilots, first officer Richard I. Cole, said that
wasn't the case. He also said an argument wasn't 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 in an interview at his home in Salem, Oregon.

He declined to discuss what exactly happened but did insist, "It was not a serious event, from a safety issue."

"I can't go into it, but it was innocuous."

He made similar comments to reporter Joe Iwanaga of CBS affiliate KOIN-TV in Portland, Oregon.

New recorders retain as much as two hours of cockpit conversation and other noise, but the older model aboard Northwest's Flight 188 includes just the last 30 minutes - only the very end of Wednesday night's flight after the pilots realized their error over Wisconsin and were heading back to Minneapolis.

They had flown through the night with no response as air traffic controllers in two states and pilots of other planes over a wide swath of the mid-continent tried to get their attention by radio, data message and cell phone.

Meanwhile, police and FBI agents on the ground were preparing for the worst, and the Air National Guard put four fighter jets on strip alert - pilots in cockpit with engines running - in case the incident turned out to be more serious, reports CBS News correspondent David Martin.

With worries about terrorists still high, even after contact was re-established, air traffic controllers ordered the plane to execute two additional turns to confirm that the pilots were in fact controlling the aircraft, reports CBS News correspondent Wyatt Andrews.

"There's a number of procedures that air traffic control have employed after 9/11 to help identify that the plane is not under the control of terrorists," former NTSB managing director Peter Goelz told Andrews.

A report released by airport police Friday identified the pilot as Timothy B. Cheney and Cole as the first officer. The report said the men were "cooperative, apologetic and appreciative" and volunteered to take preliminary breath tests that were zero for alcohol use. The report also said the lead flight attendant told police she was unaware of any incident during the flight.

View the Airport Police Incident Report

The pilots, both temporarily suspended, are to be interviewed by NTSB investigators next week. The airline, acquired last year by Delta Air Lines, is also investigating. Messages left at both men's homes were not immediately returned.

Investigators don't know whether the pilots may have fallen asleep, but National Transportation Safety Board spokesman Keith Holloway said Friday that fatigue and cockpit distraction will be looked into. The cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder arrived in Washington for examination Friday morning, an NTSB official told CBS News.

FlightAware.com Tracking of Northwest Flight 188

Voss, the Flight Safety Foundation president, said a special concern was that the many safety checks built into the aviation system to prevent incidents like this one - 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. Even the bright city lights of Minneapolis should have clued them in that they'd reached their destination.

"It's is probably something you would say never would happen if this hadn't just happened," Voss said.

The pilots were finally alerted to their situation when a flight attendant called on an intercom from the cabin. Two pilots flying in the vicinity were also finally able to raise the Northwest pilots using a Denver traffic control radio frequency instead of the local Minneapolis frequency.

On the ground, police and FBI agents prepared for the worst.

"When the aircraft taxied to the gate I was able to see the two white males in the seats of the flight crew, both were wearing uniforms consistent with Delta flight crew," said a police report, signed by an Officer Starch. "When the aircraft had stopped, the male seated in the pilot seat turned, looked at me and gave me two thumbs up and shook his head indicating all was OK."

Air traffic controllers in Denver had been in contact with the pilots as they flew over the Rockies, FAA spokeswoman Laura Brown said. But as the plane got closer to Minneapolis, she said, "the Denver center tried to contact the flight but couldn't get anyone."

Denver controllers notified their counterparts in Minneapolis, who also tried to reach the crew without success, Brown said.

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, said Church, the spokesman for the National Air Traffic Controllers Union. Controllers worked throughout the incident with the pilots of other planes, asking them to try to raise Flight 188 using the Denver frequency, he said.

Passenger Andrea Allmon told CBS News she was "horrified" the pilots weren't paying attention.

"Their job is to fly the plane. My job is to ride the plane," Allmon said. "They are supposed to fly the plane - it's unbelievable, unbelievable."

Another passenger, Lonnie Heidtke, said he didn't notice anything unusual before the landing except that the plane was late.

The flight attendants "did say there was a delay and we'd have to orbit or something to that effect before we got back. They really didn't say we overflew Minneapolis. ... They implied it was just a business-as-usual delay," said Heidtke, a consultant with a supercomputer consulting company based in Bloomington, Minn.

Once on the ground, the plane was met by police and FBI agents. Passengers retrieving their luggage from overhead bins were asked by flight attendants sit down, Heidtke said. An airport police officer and a couple other people came on board and stood at the cockpit door, talking to the pilots, he said.

"I did jokingly call my wife and say, 'This is the first time I've seen the police meet the plane. Maybe they're going to arrest the pilots for being so late.' Maybe I was right," Heidtke said.

In January 2008, two pilots for go! airlines fell asleep for at least 18 minutes during a midmorning flight from Honolulu to Hilo, Hawaii. The plane passed its destination and was heading out over open ocean before controllers raised the pilots. The captain was later diagnosed with sleep apnea.

FAA spokesman Tony Molinaro said in general, an unsafe condition created by a pilot could lead to the suspension of the person's pilot license and possibly a civil penalty.

[scottlackey561]

listen i dont want to trash these guys but at the same time being a proffesional I know the difference. they were getting radio calls almost 100 miles before there destination. they flew over 150 miles past their destination. they did not hear ATC for almost 250 miles???

[Evanology]

Hmmmmm...

It seems they overshot their destination on purpose so the cockpit recorder could have enough time to reset. Then, while during the part of the recording that was deleted, they must have been doing something... Whatever it was it seems odd.

The flight attendants were missing, the cockpit was locked, no radio contact, and a super long time afterward (150 miles) to reset the recorder. This seems a bit suspicious when thinking two male pilots and two female attendants were missing and not in contact at the same time. Raising questions are we?

[scottlackey561]

I don't think that this is the easy ansewer. Sure the mile high club and so forth but in reality these guys are proffesional pilots. What most likely happened is that they fell asleep.

[jimmydoe]

They were working on their "laptops"? More like they were working on each others lap tops! Gives new meaning to the term "cockpit"!!!!

[scottlackey060]

I wanted to be cool and not address this situation but this also crossed my mind

[innisfree4]

Obviously these two were having sex....

[Turbidite]

When do we get to hear about the results of the investigation? It seems that the results of so many "investigations", of any kind, never get reported. They just fade away. Might it be a good idea for CBS News to have a separate reporting column, like the opinion column, for: "Investigative Results About Incidents That You May Remember" or "Whatever Happened".

[nordeck52]

I think its kinda obvious that they're hiding something. You don't overshoot an airport landing the way they did without being distracted by something. That's just common sense.

[ekucrew]

Where were the attendants in this mess?

[doliveiraNC]

For frequent flyers like me who flies over 300,000 miles per year only with Delta/NWA, it makes me extremely worried that Delta/NWA has been having so many issues since the merger. You can see problems in the ticket counters with unprofessional staff, on the plane with discontent flight attendants and now I am starting to question the cockpit crew.
Last week, I was onboard an international flight and we returned because one of the flight attendants forgot her passport.
I don't know if the workers are underpaid or overworked or, worse, a combination of both. I have since then, changed to Continental but am not sure if this is not an "industry" problem.
When we see CEO Richard Anderson's paycheck and the loss reported for the period, that may be what the pilots were discussing about.
The airline needs changes but not the changes they have provided us with: bag charges, food for sale, horrible customer service, etc.
Meanwhile, we passengers have to pray and cross our fingers that the pilots don't sleep or have sex in the cockpit, or whatever "innocuous" may be.

[Skruffy1]

When I saw the pilot (or was it the copilot) at his door on TV telling the inquiring reporter that details will come out in the hearing next week, I expected him to set a cardboard box on the step and tell reporters to put their questions in it, like Balloon-Daddy did. These guys are digging themselves in deeper with responses like "we can't tell you what we were doing" and "I'm not doing very good here"... the latter of which is a real understatement. If they had a plausible explanation and had disclosed it, this would be on its way to being forgotten.

[r1060b]

Not sleeping and not arguing, but "innocuous". By not explaining, they are inviting us to guess. Well my guess is that the "innocuous" thing was something they did not want to have on the cockpit voice recorder. So they just flew around deliberately for long enough to make sure it was no longer on the cockpit voice recorder which had a limited half-hour duration. If they had landed on time, the "innocuous" thing would have still been on the recorder.

[nas1972]

Playing cards? Mile high club? What would Captain Sully have to say about this?

[jwesel1]

They could have landed that plane on one of the great lakes.

[PhillipGrs]

These pilots are trusted with the lives of all the paassengers on that airline.

To keep that trust they must maintain the utmost professionalism and adherence to the strict regulations their job requires.

This was not -one guy in a car-.

It was the potential endangerment of an entire airliner filled with passengers.

Their after the fact attitude that this was -no big thing- just reinforces the fact that these two men should never have a license to fly a jet again.

And the fact that they seem determined to have no coherent reason for this intentional over shoot of the landing area means they should never get in any cockpit of anything that flies again.

[bubbadubba]

I suspect they are Republicans and were popping oxycontin like their hero.

[pensacola8-2009]

Pilots were among the first employees to cross time zone boundaries rapidly and experience the effects of working in a Global Economy. The world sleeps in rhythms and it is tough and hard on the body to synchronize to different ones frequently. Those who actually do, don't have much of a life living like a robot always "rebooting" themselves to acquire a new sleeping rhythm.

The fact that pilots are already napping is a most obvious clue about something. They do fly safer in the vast majority of the situations where it is needed and permitted.

No one can say that the hiways we share are filled with drivers that are not doing the same thing. I have made numerous 12 hour road trips and split the driving duty in shifts and taken naps and it works out fine. Imagine a long road trip with young children. Overnight drives on the long roads seem to keep children calm for the vast majority of the trip while two or more adults rotate the driving.

I used to ride buses across the country years ago and it was common to see other drivers riding along and sleeping. Bus drivers have an undeniable record of good safety. They play the roles of drivers, crew-members and boarding attendants.

The FAA and NTSB should acknowledge the need for safety naps and sanction it. If they don't, they should require airlines to hire more pilots and speak in their favor when it comes to justifying additional expenses for flight safety.

The opportunities in a global economy still have boundaries when the world sleeps in rhythms.

They can't explain what happened? No problem. They just don't fly anymore.
We don't need a Jerry Springer explanation for everything, nor Queen
Catie's assessment. They can just go find a job somewhere. No problem.

They can't explain what happened? No problem. They just don't fly anymore.
We don't need a Jerry Springer explanation for everything, nor Queen
Catie's assessment. They can just go find a job somewhere. No problem.

[dakotaclark]

Hmmm...

Supposedly, they were not sleeping, and they were not arguing. Whatever they were doing was "innocuous"...whatever that means.

Maybe they were playing chess. That requires a lot of attention to detail and concentration.

Or, what if the pilot and co-pilot are bi-sexual?

Were they, uhhh?oh, never mind. It is not possible to have ?mile high club? activity in the cockpit, behind a locked door, right?

[ALBrainTrust10]

IMPOSSIBLE! As a pilot, that plane probably has three different, redundent navigation systems. On a flight like that, you count down the miles that the GPS tells you are left. You don't fly over an hour without hearing from or talking to ground based controllers. If you don't hear from the controllers, you inquire "are you still there." There are numerous radio frequency changes that occur on such a route. Those pilots had flown that route, it might even be their normal route...they would sense that they were way overdue to switch other controllers.

THE ONLY POSSIBILITY IS THEY WERE BOTH ASLEEP!

[tmittelstaed]

They were probably surfing porno on their iphones!

[45ford]

First Officer Cole: "I can't go into it, but it was innocuous."

FAA and NTSB: "Okay Mr. Cole. Given the circumstances your pilot's license has been permanently revoked which we cannot go into because our reasoning for doing so is innocuous too."


Now let's see what sort of infantile games Mr. Cole chooses to play. The very fact that he's trying to explain away the circumstances as being insignificant by playing juvenile games and using shifting excuses is more than enough to tell well-reasoned persons that he's covering up something serious. If it was something harmless, as he is insinuating, then there is no harm in revealing what really happened. Instead all of his subsequent words serve to add further scrutiny to the incident along with additional questions about his post-incident behaviors. Cole has quickly dug himself a much deeper whole which has made it all the more difficult for him to get out of. It's a classic example of one desperately trying to cover up incriminating circumstances.

It's similarly troubling why Delta flight 60 (a Boeing 767) from Rio de Janeiro made a full landing on an active taxiway immediately adjacent to a main runway at Hartsfield-Jackson Airport in Atlanta, Georgia this week. Had this incident happened when the airport was busy, it may well have resulted in a horrific crash involving multiple aircraft and numerous fatalities.

[dakotaclark]

Hmmm...

Supposedly, they were not sleeping, and they were not arguing. Whatever they were doing was innocuous...whatever that means.

Maybe they were playing chess. That requires a lot of concentration.

Or, what if the pilot and co-pilot are bi-sexual? Were they, uhhh?oh, never mind. It is not possible to have ?mile high club? activity in the cockpit, behind a locked door, right?

[ALBrainTrust10]

Delta Rio pilots colorblind? The active runway has bright white lights...the taxi way subdued blue. That was a Tenerife II disaster almost.

[robham777]

Fed Regs dictate how much down time flight crew's have and how many hours they can log per week, however there is no way to ensure that during crew rest periods that the crew actually rests. I have known many pilots and the vast majority are very type "A" people who are professional and responsible. This in my opinion is an isolated indecent and is not a reflection of the industry as a whole. If as some have suggested that there was some hanky panky going on in the cockpit, after an hour and a half, I think the pilots should consider their opportunities in the adult film biz.

[erasmus111]

by robham777 October 24, 2009 1:56 PM EDT
Fed Regs dictate how much down time flight crew's have and how many hours they can log per week, however there is no way to ensure that during crew rest periods that the crew actually rests.


They don't always have a choice of how much down time a pilot gets, do they? If there aren't enough pilots, which I have heard is the case, then they are over worked.

Same for the air traffic controllers. There just aren't enough people.