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Pilots Who Forgot to Land the Plane
(CBS News 2009)
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=5423038n&tag=api
(report begins after 1 minute)
We begin tonight with the question a lot of people have been asking. How did the pilots of that
Northwest Airlines flight from San Diego last week miss their destination? They’ve said they were not
asleep. Well what were they doing when they were supposed to be landing the Airbus A320 in the twin
cities and instead flew a hundred and fifty miles past?
Over the weekend investigators asked them and tonight Bob Orr has their answer.
In a stunning admission to federal investigators, the pilots of Northwest Airlines flight 188 conceded they
were lost in a discussion of flight schedules as they raced right past their intended Minneapolis target.
Instead of reviewing landing checklists and answering air traffic instructions, Captain Timothy Cheney
and First Officer Richard Cole had their headsets off and their noses buried in laptop computers: a
violation of airline policy.
In separate interviews, Cheney and Cole gave strikingly similar accounts. They denied having a heated
argument, denied being tired and denied falling asleep. It’s the same explanation Cole gave to reporters.
Nobody fell asleep, nobody had an argument, nobody had a fight. Other than that, I can’t tell you
anything.
But the pilots with thirty-six years of experience between them, admitted that for more than an hour they
missed multiple radio calls from air traffic controllers and other airplanes. And they told investigators
they never noticed urgent e-mails from airline dispatchers. At least 8 messages, which should have
appeared on their cockpit panel.
It’s almost unexplainable for a flight crew with the experience that these 2 gentlemen had. They got
distracted.
It wasn’t until a flight attendant called the cockpit and asked why the plane was not descending that the
pilots reacted. The jet, with one hundred forty-nine people on board and now one hundred ten miles past
its destination, finally turned around.
The co pilot called it an innocuous mistake but lost pilots have caused some of aviation’s worst events.
One hundred fifty-nine people died in 1995 when an experienced captain from American Airlines 757 lost
his way and hit a mountain near Cali Columbia.
The cockpit voice recorder will not settle this issue; there’s nothing on the tape I’m told, to challenge the
pilots’ stories, and nothing to indicate whether they were asleep or not. But they were clearly inattentive.
And aviation sources say that that alone will likely cost them their jobs and their pilot’s licences.
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Vocabulary
1. to be supposed to do something
être censé, supposé faire quelque chose
2.
3.
4.
5.
investigator
stunning
admission
to concede
enquêteur
stupéfiant, étonnant
aveu
reconnaître, admettre
6.
7.
8.
9.
to race right past
intended target
(they) had their headsets off
their nose buried in (laptop computers)
dépasser à toute allure
cible voulu, prévu
ils avaient enlevé leur casque (à écouteurs)
ils avaient leur nez plongé dans leur ordinateur
10. strikingly
11. an account
12. to deny
13. to have a heated argument
14. cockpit panel
(1er sens de ‘to bury’ = enterrer)
frappant
récit, compte rendu
nier
avoir une vive dispute
15. a flight crew
tableau de commandes
équipage
16. a flight attendant
17. to be distracted
18. to turn around
19. innocuous
hôtesse de l’air, steward
être distrait
faire demi tour
anodin, sans conséquence
20. to settle the issue
21. to challenge a story
régler l’affaire
contester, mettre en question