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US probes pilots who overshot airport by 240 kilometres

AFP | Sun, Oct 25 2009

Crew stated they were in a heated discussion over airline policy and they lost situational awareness.

US probes pilots who overshot airport by 240 kilometres

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WASHINGTON - US aviation officials and the FBI probed Friday how pilots of an airplane with 149 people on board managed to overshoot their destination by 150 miles (240 kilometres), prompting fears of a hijacking.

The US National Transportation Safety Board said controllers lost radio contact late Wednesday with the Northwest Airlines flight heading from San Diego, California to Minneapolis, Minnesota.

A Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) spokesman in Minneapolis confirmed to AFP that the agency had launched its own investigation into the incident, but declined to comment further.

Passengers reported being unaware of any mishap until police boarded the plane when it eventually landed at Minneapolis Airport more than an hour behind schedule.

"The crew stated they were in a heated discussion over airline policy and they lost situational awareness," the safety board said, although a source close to the investigation said the crew had not yet been independently interviewed.

The plane's cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder are being sent to Washington for analysis. Northwest Airlines reportedly suspended the pilots from flying as the probe got under way.

During the 78-minute radio silence officials initially feared the pilots were in distress or the plane had been hijacked.

"When you aren't speaking to a commercial airliner, that's a big issue for us," said Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Tony Molinari told the Minneapolis Star-Tribune

“We see them on the radar, but not being able to talk to them is a problem."

The Star-Tribune reported that military fighter jets were readied to chase down the plane, which was travelling at its highest cruising altitude of 37,000feet (11,300 meters), before contact was re established.

"The descent to the airport normally begins about 150 miles before the airport and they flew 150 miles behind it, so that is very curious," former federal aviation investigator Bill Voss told AFP.

"Many people are skeptical about the pilot's explanation that they were in heated arguments. There would have been many visual cues on the flight director... Another possibility, of course, is fatigue and they could have fallen asleep."

Voss said Wednesday’s drama brought to mind a February 2008 incident in which a Go! Airlines plane overshot Honolulu's main airport by 15 miles (24km). The pilots were later fired after they admitted they fell asleep.

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