So That Commercial Jet With Unresponsive Pilots Flying Right Past The Airport? Worst Deja Vu Ever Basically
by Juli Weiner 8:40 am October 23, 2009
- Unpopular elected official Harry Reid is just all about including the public option on the new health care bill. [New York Times]
- John Kerry is so busy and fulfilled chairing the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that he totally doesn’t even have time to think about 2004. [Washington Post]
- A team of pilots flying a commercial airliner overshot their destination, the Minneapolis airport, by 150 miles yesterday. The FAA first blamed terrorism but is now blaming sleep, the terrorism of trying to stay awake at work. [CNN]
- Legislation stating that violence against gay people is, legally-speaking, a hate crime is THISCLOSE to becoming law. All Obama has to do is sign the dotted line, which he will. [Los Angeles Times]
- Barry is trying to convince Iran to fulfill all its uranium enrichment needs overseas somewhere. Iran is trying to cultivate an arsenal of nuclear weapons. These things may be mutually exclusive! [AP]
- Britain is still in the midst of its own recession. Ehh, and everyone though the third quarter was going to be the turnaround one for the economy over there. Alas. [Reuters]
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{ 38 comments }
Well, Minneapolis is easy to miss.
[re=442214]Monsieur Grumpe[/re]: True that. You can’t even foursquare from there.
More’s the pity on the bad Brit economy. If it goes on any longer the Brit economy may resemble the teeth of it’s citizens.
I’m glad John Kerry is fulfilled because I think there’s a lot of us all over the world who would like to forget Lurch’s “Vietnam War Tour” er campaign, too. Only good things to come out of that election:
1) No John “Newt” Edwards bimbo eruptions
2) Kerry would be labeled another Carter
3) The Demoncraps would have “owned” this mess (this would be known as the Kerry Recession)
4) The GOPers would be the side show it is, but with power.
I’m no obs/gyn but I believe contractions at the end of the third quarter are normal occurrences.
Also, the turnaround in the economy is expected in one quarter or another, but no one seems sure about the year.
Hey Mr. President do what our Godhead Ronald Reagan was going to do for the Soviets with Star Wars. Just give the Iran guys a nuke then talk to them regularly about Mutually Assured Destruction. Problem solved. PS Can I have a job at State?
Haha, per the morning Minneapolis fishwrap, the passengers are demanding additional frequent flier miles. Delta will probably charge them for the extra trip to Eau Claire, also.
Juuuuuuuuli, you forgot to mention that gay marriage is even legaler in Sweden now!
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/International/2009/10/22/Church-of-Sweden-to-conduct-gay-weddings/UPI-59671256256299/
[re=442220]WarAndG[/re]: To run the risk of being serious on a Friday morning, President Reagan watched a tv movie about the world after a nuclear war and became convinced we need to rid of all such weapons. Now, of course, the right wing gasbags call President Obama naive because he wants to do precisely the same thing. I heard Terry Gross interview the author of a new book about the Cold War and nuclear bombs and stuff: “The Dead Hand.”
The interview was amazing because the “Dr. Strangelove” Doomsday Machine turned out to be exactly what was really going on and Ms. Gross never brought that up!
[re=442222]Potater[/re]: Aren’t all weddings supposed to be gay? I thought that was the whole idea. Well, at least happy.
What the hell? They’re making beating up gay people illegal now, as a hate crime? This sets a dangerous precedent. This infringes on my right to beat up people who think and act differently than I do, which is unconstitutional. I am particularly concerned about this due to my pending arraignment for going after those three white dudes wearing backwards baseball caps. I don’t deny that it’s my crowbar I used, and I used my civil rights, also.
Re: Hate Crimes… “It’s a shame that this piece of legislation was added to a bill that’s supposed to be about supporting our troops,” said Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.).
No, Lamar. It’s a crying shame that you’re a total dickbag with all the emotional sensibility of a rotting vulture carcass. Can we have legislation making it legal to beat the shit out of fuckwit Republicans, plz?
Oh jesus what a fucked up mess we’d have if Kerry had won. He attacked W on Iraq from the right, pledging to send a gajillion more troops there, all cuz he was afeared of being called a pussy, like all Dems were by the right. That would’ve been like throwing gasoline on a fire. Yeah W did that surge thingie, but preceded it with bribery on an unprecedented scale. Either way, better ultimately to pin that disaster solely on W.
Also, pilots falling asleep? Weird, seeing as how most humans’ reaction upon finding themselves in the cockpit (heh) of an airborne plane would be the polar opposite of sleep.
I think they were just hoping to land at an airport where there are no creeps hanging around in the men’s room.
Larry Craig woke them up by tapping their foot.
Holy cow, the Hard Work U kids have gone wild (such as it is) defending themselves on the thread we had long forgotten. Sadly, they don’t realize you be moral and work hard at one of those non-God colleges, too. And that people will have the amount of sex they want to have regardless of the rules.
[re=442233]Tundra Grifter[/re]: Ve vere goink to tell you on Tuesday.
[re=442251]hobospacejunkie[/re]: I’m told that flying commercial aircraft is VERY boring after you’ve done it a few thousand hours.
I’m very glad Harry Reid is for the public option — because he’s been so acquiescent to Republicans for so long that finding this out is giving me dizzy spells.
Soopy Sales died, ask Lady Peggington who he is.
[re=442251]hobospacejunkie[/re]:
Avionics heat, boredom, and fatique can be considerable forces against a pilot’s efforts to stay awake. Long flights may require the crew to cat-nap in shifts. The flight computer does most of the flying. The pilots are there to monitor the instruments and talk to departure/control/approach.
[re=442235]Larry McAwful[/re]: I love how the fucktards try to whine about “thoughtcrime”. I would think around the time you actually strike someone with a tire iron, you sort of crossed that line.
Nobody is excited to about going to the Minneapolis airport now that all the cruisy bathrooms have been shut down.
[re=442217]ManchuCandidate[/re]:
“More’s the pity on the bad Brit economy. If it goes on any longer the Brit economy may resemble the teeth of it’s citizens.”
Ha HA. I was at the NC State Fair yesterday with all the fat people and I guess they were mostly Brits. That or Fatty McAmericans with diabetes and deep fried butter TRYING to impersonate Brits.
[re=442343]Paul Tardy[/re]: Even I know who Soupy Sales was. He was the dad of the bass player in Tin Machine.
[re=442271]Come here a minute[/re]: I’m surprised they even made it to that thread. I figured most of them would’ve stopped cold (and gone summarily blind) at the Meghan BOOBZ thread.
I’m shocked, SHOCKED!!! that there is sleeping going on on the flight deck!
(Actually, I AM pretty shocked that the f/a’s weren’t calling up there to find out why
they weren’t getting their landing announcement to go and boss the peeps around
about their seat backs and tray tables.)
[re=442251]hobospacejunkie[/re]: I’ve been told (by pilots) that flying a modern jetliner amounts to loooooonnng periods of boredom, punctuated by brief moments of sheer terror. I also know for a fact that some planes are equipped with alarm bells that sound if a button or switch (ANY button or switch) isn’t pushed, pulled, turned or toggled after a prescribed amount of time. This is some engineer’s solution to unusual “inactivity” in the cockpit.
This knowledge should make everyone feel better about flying. That is all.
[/self-annointed 'go-to' guy for airline stuff at Wonkette]
[re=442466]RoscoePColtraine[/re]: I just saw a blurb on Bloomberg (Bloomblurb?) that there was a “heated discussion” on the flight deck – that was the reason for the miss…
Also, this is the new paradigm for pilots who fail to respond to radio contact with air-traffic control:
Automatically assume the pilots are getting bee-zay with a flight attendantAutomatically assume the plane is being hijacked by terroristsAutomatically assume the pilots are sleeping
[re=442477]proudgrampa[/re]: Yes, because if you take the word “heated” out of the equation, there is no real justification for missing the twin cities of Minneapolis/St.Paul.
[re=442481]RoscoePColtraine[/re]: Y’know, why weren’t they awoken by SAMs in this post-9/11 world?
If terrists seized control, their most logical next step would be to turn off the transponder. Minneapolis Control was still receiving their squawk so no missiles or fighters were needed.
[re=442529]Servo[/re]: That’s what they want you to think! I don’t think you’re properly terrorized. Where’s the Mayor of 9/11 when you need him?
[re=442486]RoscoePColtraine[/re]: Whether asleep or having a heated discussion, missing an airport doesn’t give me a lot of warm fuzzies about flying. For the record, I’m sympathetic to the pilots – overworked and underpaid.
[re=442535]Guppy06[/re]:
9iu11ani?
[re=442537]proudgrampa[/re]:
Airline management considers pilots to be one rung up from bus drivers. Northwest is particularly bad with the time management, too. Remember back in 2007 when a large portion of their pilots reached their maximum hours before the end of the month?
[re=442481]RoscoePColtraine[/re]: Thanks for the insider scoop, Roscoe PC! Is it possible for a pilot to give head to his/her co-pilot with his her headphones on? Could he/she/they possibly have done this for 88 minutes? (Wow)
Is it possible that Delta (and others) have a quota of on-time flights to meet, and that they needed to slow that shit down, so as not to over-achieve?
In summation, was this just a couple of hyper-conscientious gay pilots, lost in the cloudy space of trying not to stretch their performance objectives, while clearly doing so?
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