WASHINGTON — Were the pilots distracted? Catching up on their sleep? Federal investigators struggled to determine what the crew members 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.
The cockpit voice recorder might not tell the tale.
A report released late Friday said the pilots passed breathalyzer tests and were apologetic after Wednesday night’s odyssey. They said they had been having a heated discussion about airline policy.
But aviation safety experts and other pilots were 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 fell asleep somewhere along their route from San Diego.
“Pilots on occasion do take controlled naps,” Barry Schiff, an aviation safety consultant and retired pilot for erstwhile TWA, told The Washington Post. “So this is not without precedent.”
One of the two pilots, first officer Richard I. Cole, said that wasn’t the case.
“I can assure you none of us was asleep,” Cole told ABC News. He declined to comment further except to say, “I am not doing very good.”
National Transportation Safety Board spokesman Keith Holloway said Friday that fatigue and cockpit distraction will be looked into. The plane’s flight recorders were brought to the board’s Washington headquarters.
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 Denver and Minneapolis and the pilots of other planes tried to get their attention by radio, data message and cellphone.
On the ground, officials alerted National Guard jets to go after the airliner from two locations, though none of the military planes got off the runway.
A report released by airport police Friday identified the pilot as Timothy B. Cheney and the first officer as Cole.
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.
The pilots, both temporarily suspended, will be interviewed by NTSB investigators next week. The airline, acquired last year by Delta Air Lines, also is investigating.
Denver connection
Denver contact: Air traffic controllers in Denver had been in contact with the Northwest pilots as they flew over the Rockies, said FAA spokeswoman Laura Brown. But as the plane got closer to Minneapolis, she said, “the Denver center tried to contact the flight but couldn’t get anyone.”
Minneapolis notified: Denver controllers notified their counterparts in Minneapolis, who also tried to reach the crew without success, Brown said.
Out of range: Officials suspect Flight 188’s radio might have been tuned to a frequency used by Denver controllers even though the plane had flown beyond their reach, said Doug Church, a spokesman for the National Air Traffic Controllers Association.
The Associated Press
