The NW overflight, what REALLY happened

Subject: NWA overflight



Date: November 24, 2009 4:46:07 PM CST

Subject: Info on NW Flt 188

This was passed along to me and thought you all might find it very
interesting reading considering the press stopped following this story
once these guys lost their licenses. I have flown with Tim a number of
time and can also say he is a great guy. One of my favorite guys to
fly with.


Now for the rest of the story.....

Hi All,

I had a one hour conversation with Tim Cheney yesterday and would like
to shed some light on what happened to cause the over flight of their
destination, MSP.

Before I begin with details, I wanted to say right up front that
although there are many events that helped to cause this, Tim takes
full responsibility and places no blame on anyone but himself. He is
very humbled by what has happened and fully understands that as
captain, he was responsible for the a/c, crew and passengers. That
said, he wanted me to know how it all happened.

Secondly, he has the full support of his neighbors in Gig Harbor, WA,
as well has his church parishioners. One of his neighbors wrote a
letter to the Star & Tribune in Minneapolis saying how great a family
the Cheney's were, I agree.

On their flight from San Diego to Minneapolis, after passing Denver,
the f/a called the cockpit to let them know Tim's crew meal was ready.
Tim was the "flying pilot" on this leg, so he told his F/O that when
the f/a brings the meal up, he will step back to use the restroom.
When Tim returned, the F/A left the cockpit and he began to eat his
crew meal.

When a pilot leaves to use the restroom, it is customary for the other
pilot to brief him on his return on "any changes", such as altitude,
heading, course changes or atc center frequency changes, etc. In this
instance, nothing was said....even though the f/o had received a
frequency change. The problem that occurred was that the f/o never got
a response on the new frequency....it was not the correct
frequency....it was a Winnipeg Canada Center Freq.

Now, Denver Center is trying to get ahold of them because they never
checked in, because the f/o had dialed in the wrong freq......that is
who called them so many times....but, then there was a shift change at
Denver Center and no one briefed the new controller that there was a
NORDO A/C (non communications) in their airspace....so, in actuality,
atc basically "lost" this a/c.....see Wall Street Journal article
below.

Tim told me he heard atc chatter on the speaker and so never thought
they were out of radio range.....but, of course, they were hearing
pilots talk on Winnipeg Center. For non-pilots.....when we don’t hear
anything for a long while...we ask atc if they are still
there....sometimes they are and sometimes you are out of their area
and need to find a new frequency. With this chatter going on, there
was no concern that they were not being controlled.

Then Tim told the f/o that the new bidding system was horrible and
that his November schedule was not what he hoped for. He mentioned
that his son was going into the Army in Dec. and he wanted certain
days off so he could see him off.....the f/o said he could help him,
he knew more about the new bidding system. Tim got his lap top out and
put it on his left leg and showed the f/o how he bid.. He told me he
had his lap top out for maybe 2 minutes. Then the f/o said that he
would show him how to do it on his laptop. He had his laptop out
maximum of 5 minutes.

Let's also add the 100 kt tail wind that they had to the discussion,
not helping matters.

The f/a's called the cockpit on the interphone (no they did not kick
the door, no, no one was sleeping, no, no one was fighting) and asked
when they will get there. They looked at their nav screens and were
directly over MSP. Because they had their screens set on the max, 320
kt setting, when the f/o called on the frequency, which of course was
Winnipeg Center, he saw Eau Claire and Duluth on his screen. They
asked where they were and the f/o told them over Eau Claire, which was
not even close, but MSP had disappeared from the screen even though
they were right over the city.

They were, as you all know, vectored all over the sky to determine if
they had control of the a/c and Tim kept telling the f/o to tell them
they have control they want to land at MSP, etc. They landed with
11,000 pounds of fuel (no they did not come in on fumes, but had 2
hours in an A320) and not but 15 minutes past schedule, even though
they left San Diego 35 minutes late due to an atc flow restriction.

In the jet-way awaiting them were FBI and every other authority you
can imagine.

Aftermath and tidbits:

Although these pilots filed an NASAP Report, which was designed to
have pilots tell the truth about events, so the FAA could learn from
them, they had their licenses revoked by the ATL F.A.A. even before
they came out of their meeting with NTSB and NASAP meetings.

ATL FAA is really big on this new regulation which will allow pilots
to take a short nap in flight so they will be rested for the
approach...they were insistent that they were sleeping.

MSP FAA, Vance (do not know last name) was the person who handed Tim
his revocation letter(which was leaked to the entire world by the ATL
FAA). Tim said Vance had tears in his eyes and walked away, said
nothing. It was later learned that the entire MSP FAA office did not
agree at all with revoking their pilot's licenses, but had no
jurisdiction over the matter, since ATL FAA had control because of
Delta.

The pilots have been to Wash. D.C., ATL and MSP for several meetings.
In ATL, they met with the chief pilots and Tim said they could not
have been nicer. They are working to resolve this, not to try and fire
them. But of course, they will have to get their license back for
Delta to consider allowing them to continue flying. The appeal has
been files for the FAA to reinstate their licenses or to settle on
some form of punishment, etc.

When Tim and his wife were in MSP for a meeting with the NTSB, they
happen to be staying at the same hotel as the NTSB was. The next
morning in the lobby, the NTSB official came over to Tim and said he
did not know why they even called them in for this event. There was no
safety issue. Also, MSP Center informed Delta that there never was a
problem and no aircraft were near their plane. Even though no radio
communications, they had been followed and separated.

Yes, the company tried to contact them on ACARS, but the 320 does not
have a chime...it has a 30 second light which then extinguishes.

Tim always has 121.5 tuned, but as we all know as pilots, it can get
very noisy at times and we turn it down and sometimes forget to turn
it back on. He told me this may have been the case..

So there were so many factors which helped to cause this episode.
Anyone would have likely prevented it.....properly checking in on the
new frequency would have been the first one.....

A note about laptops.....in NWA's A.O.M (I think it stands for
airman's operation manual), it does not say we can't use a laptop,
however in Delta's A.O.M., it does, we are transitioning now and we
actually have pages from both airlines. When our union showed this to
the attorney's, they could not believe the confusion put on our pilot
group. But, D.C. F.A.A. put out a new possible ruling which will
disallow all laptops......so stupid, don't they know Jet Blue has
laptops on every aircraft and soon all airliners will for the
electronic Jepp charts.

These are the facts and again, Tim said he feels very bad for the
company and the pilots and is hoping for a positive outcome on their
appeal. With 24 years at NWA, 21,000 blemish free hours, it would be a
mistake to ruin his career over this in my opinion.

Thank you,


F.A.A. Fails to brief new controller on duty (WSJ Article)

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125677288976914581.html