That Silly Northwest Flight

You've probably heard about that silly Northwest flight that went out of radar contact for 77 minutes and overshot their intended landing field by 150 miles. They claim they went "NORDO" (FAA speak for no radio contact) because they were on their laptops at the time (whether or not that's true, we'll probably never know). Now, as part of their efforts to reclaim their revoked pilots licenses, they've accused ATC of being at fault for not coordinating properly with Northwest Dispatch (for those not in the know: commercial planes tend to have two or more radio frequencies open at all times, one on their local ATC and one to their company's private dispatch line; generally they'll also have two or three other open frequencies as situations require).

There may be a certain degree of merit to their assertions here since the 7110.65 (ATC Bible) is a bit fuzzy on coordinating with air carrier operation HQs. In the world of ATC even minor deviations from the 7110 can result in serious repercussions for the controllers involved, so this is a very serious accusation these pilots are making. But, setting that aside, let's look at this logically for a moment. The pilots were NORDO not just with ATC, but also with their own company. No amount of ATC/NWA cooperation was going to change who these pilots were or were not listening to. It was a flight attendant, making her own observations, who finally got through to the pilots, not somebody on the ground.

The FAA, unfortunately, does not have a good track record for backing up their controllers though, and tend to be very fast to point the finger of blame at anyone who is not an FAA executive. Of course, in this case the FAA has almost no role to play at all, but you can bet they'll still do everything they can to shift even the slightest hint of blame from themselves to the most convenient target. Fortunately, the most obvious target is the pilots for being nimrods, but it will be interesting to see if ATC comes out of this unscathed now that the finger has been pointed.