Northwest Pilots Cut a Deal

In case you forgot about the two Northwest Airlines pilots who overflew their destination by 150 miles, read our post about it here. According to CNN.com, the pilots of that aircraft have cut a deal with the FAA. They won't protest the revocation of their licenses. In return, they can apply for new ones in 10 months instead of 12.

This seems like a pretty great deal to me, but I don't want to go too hard on these guys. They sounded sincere in their apologies and perhaps even their explanation of what happened. CNN also reported that the NTSB is convinced the pilots weren't asleep or anything on the flight in question. They ruled that the pilots just became distracted.

Interestingly, the NTSB's report (press release and links here) also does quite a bit of finger pointing at the FAA. Apparently the aircraft flew through a couple different air traffic control sectors and controllers should have made contact as soon as the plane entered each one. I've seen this happen myself. While talking to a busy center controller, I get pushed to another busy frequency. It's so crowded that I can't get a word in edgewise and I end up distracted with a checklist or something (maybe a traffic alert on my TCAS....) A few minutes later I remember that I never checked in so I call the controller and he or she seems surprised that I'm there. The NTSB seems to have issues the the automatic hand-over of aircraft between sectors and with standard procedures for radio communications.

I'm glad to see the NTSB looking at the whole picture and shying away from a catch-all assessment of 'pilot error.' My understanding is that this isn't necessarily a statement of 'controller error' either. It sounds like their systems don't do much to help them in a situation like this.

I almost hesitate to throw this barb, but I guess it's too tough to resist: If after all these years ATC procedures aren't able to keep accountability of aircraft given the system in place, then how are our controllers going to deal with the significantly increased traffic density they'll be faced with under NextGen? I sure hope the FAA is working day and night to figure that one out and that they wait to implement NextGen in the nation's busiest chunks of airspace until they have a solution.