Northwest Flight 188, You Asleep?
Come on now. Is there really any doubt the pilots of Northwest Flight 188 fell asleep and overflew Minneapolis by 150 miles?
The crew might claim otherwise, but even if you’re engaged in a “heated discussion over airline policy,” you just can’t miss ATC in your ear for 78-minutes.
You’re asleep. Admit it.
Of course, the cockpit voice recorder will catch the conversation, or snoring. Or, will it?
Many CVRs only record the last 30-minutes of cockpit conversation. And it’s quite convinient that Flight 188 was probably airborne longer than that after it turned around.
In fact, a quick glance at the flight path shows a suspiciously circuitous route back to MSP.
Were the pilots trying to “bleed-off” what the voice recorder may have captured? The NTSB sure hopes it was a more modern CVR, capable of two hours or more.
It certainly wouldn’t be the first time a crew started snoozing in flight.
Remember those two go! pilots who crashed – yes, bad choice of words – in the cockpit between islands in Hawaii?
A beautiful morning and a short flight still couldn’t keep them awake.
So it seems that this cross-country journey at night would be a perfect place to sleep through your VHF alarm clock.
