Anyone else find this slightly worrying...?

[IckleMissMayhem]

Airline pilots miss an airport they were meant to land at by 150 miles (240km), due to an argument.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8321748.stm


o.0 *twitch*
I mean, just how distracted do you have to be to manage to accomplish this?! It's not like missing a turn off on the motorway (although I suppose that's the road-driving equivalent...)
I'd have assumed that the computers in the cockpit would have been chirping away, as well as ATC's pretty much yelling over the radio, after all, they'd been out of contact for 73 minutes. Assuming that they'd been 'distracted' for that length of time, what else have they missed?
Luckily, nothing much seems to have happened, but if it had, what sort of punishment would or should these guys have been given (assuming they'd lived to admit wrongdoing)? Since the punishment for dangerous driving are quite high, and you can only transport (assuming you're in a normal car) at the most, 6 extra people, being responsible for the safety of 150 people - should the punishments for airline pilots be scaled up?
Incidentally, what worries you most (if anything) about air travel? Is it the threat of bombing/hi-jacking? A fault with the plane? or incidents like this?

 

[thePyro_13]

Nothing to worry about, theirs nothing they could crash into up there anyway.

 

[scrambledeggs]

there pilot licenses should be revoked and they should be permanently strapped to the ground.

this is just ridiculous. maybe they were arguing about their.. umm.. cockpit.. sizes.

aherm.

 

[j0z]

Also, the USAF had 2 jets standing by, waiting for the order to blow it out of the sky.
This incident is completely inexcusable, and the pilots should never be able to fly again.

 

[Katherine Kerensky]

SNAFU.
or I think so...
Anyway, it's happened, so they'll probably be grounded. permantenly.

 

[Inverse Skies]

At least no-one was hurt, that's the important thing to take out of this bizarre mess. It's a very odd one yes, and they should lose their jobs over it, but nothing bad happened except for some annoyed passengers, so at least be thankful for that.

 

[Threesan]

Minus points for vague thread title.

I happen to hold the apparently uncommon opinion that punishing people for accidents is nonsense -- rather, punish for the irresponsible behavior that lead to the accident. Not knowing where your plane is for over an hour? Completely unacceptable. If they scrambled fighters, ATC must have tried to contact them repeatedly. If they turned off their radio or took off their headphones, that seems like a serious breach of protocol. If they both fell asleep... well, in either case maybe ATC needs an "Oy! Wake up!/WTH are you doing?" button.

Curious what the black box will say. But alone, this isn't really enough to worry me. We already knew that pilots are human.

 

[Captain Pancake]

Some heads must have rolled after that.

 

[cuddly_tomato]

Cockpit Resource Management [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crew_Resource_Management] is standard training given to civilian pilots all over the world these days. When problems arise during flight one of the crew is supposed to focus on dealing with the problems while the other focuses on flying the plane safely. Ultimately the airline is responsible for training its pilots and making sure they are sound of mind before taking the lives of tens, and often hundreds, of people in their hands. Depending on what the CVR reveals the airline will probably be fined and have the rest of its pilots vetted.

What these guys were arguing about I have no idea, but this isn't a first. There was a crash several years ago because the entire flight crew were focused on a light bulb that had gone off in the cockpit, they failed to notice that the autopilot had disengaged and thus a perfectly good aircraft was flown into the ground.

 

[Kuhly]

That what happens when you get rid of the girls and beer out of cockpits

 

[Amnestic]

Minus points for vague thread title.

I happen to hold the apparently uncommon opinion that punishing people for accidents is nonsense -- rather, punish for the irresponsible behavior that lead to the accident. Not knowing where your plane is for over an hour? Completely unacceptable. If they scrambled fighters, ATC must have tried to contact them repeatedly. If they turned off their radio or took off their headphones, that seems like a serious breach of protocol. If they both fell asleep... well, in either case maybe ATC needs an "Oy! Wake up!/WTH are you doing?" button.

Curious what the black box will say. But alone, this isn't really enough to worry me. We already knew that pilots are human.

When you've got 150-odd people relying on you to not kill them all, 'falling asleep' isn't really an option.

 

[fix-the-spade]

I don't worry about anything when flying.

My thought process runs that I'm on the plane and if this particular flight is the one out of 500'000 or whatever that is going to end in an enormous fireball, there's nothing I can do about it. Worrying won't affect the outcome.


As for those pilots, what a pair of tits. At least they didn't put anyone's lives in danger but they're stil a pair of complete tits.

 

[iJosh]

That's absolutely ridiculous. Makes me not want to go to the dominican republic by airline anymore.

 

[cuddly_tomato]

As for those pilots, what a pair of tits. At least they didn't put anyone's lives in danger but they're stil a pair of complete tits.

Yes. I'd love to get my hands on them!

EDIT: To teach them a lesson, I mean!

 

[Trivun]

I've travelled by plane loads of times, including to the USA. Started flying when I was twelve. Never had anything to worry about. But that story is pretty silly, those pilots should definitely be disciplined somehow. As Inverse said, at least no-one lost their lives or was hurt, but for the pilots to make such a stupid mistake is pretty terrible.

On that note, I've flown aircraft before. I did a gliding scholarship paid for by the RAF a few years ago, and got my blue wings, which basically means I know how to fly a glider on my own. I would have gone for my silver wings which would be a solo flight and thus been able to fly a glider anytime on my own, but bad weather on the last day cut that short so I can only fly with an instructor for the time being. The silly thing is though, I made a similar mistake as these pilots due to not concentrating. During the scholarship, I was meant to fly a single circuit (which is basically take off, climb to 800ft altitude, fly in a circle around the airfield, then land). I paid more attention than I should have to the surrounding airspace and ended up flying about 2000ft too high. The instructor had to take control and get us back on course. So it can be very easy to make basic mistakes when flying, though I'll admit that 150 miles is a bit too much to be considered 'basic'...

 

[fix-the-spade]

As for those pilots, what a pair of tits. At least they didn't put anyone's lives in danger but they're stil a pair of complete tits.

Yes. I'd love to get my hands on them!

EDIT: To teach them a lesson, I mean!

Innuendo of the day, right there.

(honk honk)

 

[Kif]

Slightly worrying. However, at the same time, those aircraft can pretty much fly themselves so the danger of crashing was minimal... the biggest concern would likely have been fuel consumption and perhaps straying into other aircraft's flightpaths.

Sounds like perhaps they were relying on the aircraft's 'cruise control' just a bit too much and maybe the system is out by a degree or so.

 

[IckleMissMayhem]

At least they didn't put anyone's lives in danger but they're stil a pair of complete tits.

The first part I don't agree with, the second I do. Although I'd probably use stronger language IRL.

Are you really saying you don't believe a pair/team (aren't there usually three in a cockpit?) of pilots who weren't concentrating on flying the plane so much they missed their landing destination and weren't responding over the radio didn't put any one of their 147 or the rest of the flight crew in danger?
Or did I misunderstand you?

Anyway, I'd love to get to listen to the Flight Recorder, and find out what exactly was so distracting... Would make good listening, don't you think?

 

[AnneSQF]

thank god they didnt ran out of gas :S

 

[LongAndShort]

I laughed when I first read about this, but nothing else. I don't worry about flying normally and this certainly didn't worry me, but i don't worry often, so I'm not that great of an example of when to worry or not.

I think I said 'worry' to often in that paragraph. Eh, no worries...