Aviation News Item: 00193

23rd Oct 2009

Source: ubmaviationnews.com

The US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is investigating why radio communications with a Northwest Airlines (NWA) A320 were lost for an hour and 18 minutes and the aircraft overflew its destination, Minneapolis-St Paul International/Wold-Chamberlain Airport (MSP), on Wednesday (October 21). Air traffic controllers lost radio contact to the aircraft, which was en route from San Diego International (SAN) to MSP with 147 passengers onboard, at 17.56 mountain daylight time (23.56 UTC) when it was flying at a cruising altitude of 37,000ft. The aircraft overflew Minneapolis at 19.58 central daylight time (0.58 UTC) and continued in northeast direction for approximately 150 miles. At 20.14 CDT (1.14 UTC) ATC at Minneapolis Centre re-established contact and redirected the flight crew to the airport where they safely landed; the pilots reportedly stated to ATC that they had become distracted. According to the FAA the crew was interviewed by the FBI and airport police. The crew then stated they were in a heated discussion over airline policy and they lost situational awareness.

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