Northwest Airlines Airbus

[jesse]

For those of you that did not see the press release of the NWA Airbus cockpit, I have included it for your viewing. I see nothing that should distract the pilots causing them to overfly KMSP by 150 miles.

Jesse

[dc6tryer]

Hi,

;D ;D ;D ;D

Andy.

[qxtoolman]

That's Great!!!! Jesse.
I just thought they flew 150 miles over Northern Wisconsin was to scope out where to put their tree stands, because Deer season starts
in 2 weeks.

[chris_c]

That explains all. I had thought that they had just set the time acceleration to x16 and took a short nap.

Chris

[louross]

Best laugh I've had in some time.
lr.

[Maarten]

Brilliant! Absolutely brilliant!

Cheers,
Maarten

[acourt]

Has anyone thought about how this really went down?

Picture it...

Late at night. Dark. You're slightly tired after droning across the US for several hours. You've been sleeping, perusing your bid for next month, and using your digits to mine your nasal cavities.

Suddenly, that God awful Airbus chime from the cabin goes off (imagine the loudest sound you've ever heard, and make it louder). After calming your heart and peeling yourself off the ceiling, you look up and see the following...

The Nav Display is showing a present position with no flight plan track (the green or magenta line you're supposed to stay on). The display is also filled with VORs and fixes that don't look familiar. At all.

The FMS is showing that you've arrived at the destination, and is showing only a present position waypoint, with no arrival airport or approach.

Depending on the programming, the FMS entered the Approach phase, and dutifully slowed the airplane to somewhere around Green Dot speed (perhaps 240 IAS at that altitude). That's REALLY slow.

The radios are particularly quiet. It's funny how this Center frequency is the same as Denver Center. And who's leg is this? Were you flying, or was I?

You look out the window. You don't yet realize it, but you're over north central Minnesota...at night. No lights. Yep, it looks like you flew off the edge of the planet (I knew the darn thing was actually flat!)

I can't even imagine the absolute panic that must have ensued. Personally, I would have kept going and taken my chances with the Canadians! ;D

Al

[Randy_Cain]

Hi,

I'm afraid I have to go along with the theory that each pilot had his laptop in his lap, one with the Delta website and the other with the Northwest website up, getting into a STRONG argument over pay, sick time, holiday pay, and other points of the contract and union negotiations surrounding the takeover bid....having already turned down the radios because transmissions were distracting them from their "train" of thought.

Yours,

[dave mcqueen]

While courting my wife I flew Northwest every other week from San Francisco to Detroit for several years. I always brought with me a laptop with a Garmin 18 GPS (no longer being made) attached to the laptop with a USB cable that I used to monitor our position. Sometimes I flew on B757s and sometimes on A320s.

On a return trip to San Francisco one Sunday I was in first class next to a deadheading A330 pilot commuting to his SFO - RJAA flight. We had just passed Omaha when a flight attendant came up and told the pilot --- who was reading a magazine and who was in the aisle seat --- that a passenger wanted to know what city we had just crossed over. The pilot shrugged and motioned to the magazine as if to say, "How the hell would I know?"

I then volunteered that we had just passed Omaha. And she said, "Oh, then that river was the Mississippi River." And I said, no actually it was the Missouri River. To which she responded ditzily, "Oh, then are we over Nevada?!?!" Then she walked off to tell the passenger what she had learned. The pilot and I looked at each other and just rolled our eyes.

[jesse]

Dave, that reminds me of the classic story about the pretty Blonde that was going from KSFO to KJFK. After boarding her flight she went into the first class section. The Flight Attendant told her that she only had a coach ticket and she would have to move to another seat. The Blonde replied that "I am Blonde, Beautiful and I am going to New York. After several attempts to get her to move, the FA finally notified the Captain of her problem. This was in the days before the cockpit was sealed and the crew often mingled with the passengers. The Captain came out and talked to the Blonde, and after a few minutes, she picked up her belongings and began moving to the back of the plane. The FA asked the Captain what he had said that made the girl move. The Captain told the FA that he told the Blonde that if she was going to New York, the first class section was not going; only the back end of the plane was going there.

Jesse

[Kristopher Crook, RAI]

The pnly thing missing is the beer fridge behind the pilot's seat, and maybe a bottle of Vodka tied on a rope outside the sliding window so they can make sure it's nice and cold on one of those four-hour ramp parks @kmsp.

[jesse]

Welcome back, stranger. We've missed you here on the forums.

8-)Jesse