Saturday, October 24, 2009

Sequel to IC 884

Remember IC 884 the Airbus 320 flight from Sharjah to Delhi creating history by pioneering in-flight scuffle among the crew (Blog dt.Oct.4) ? Now there is an interesting sequel to this show of irresponsibility by air crew.
Again this is an Airbus 320. The flight is again a double octave : it is numbered 188 (Northwest flight). On October 23, the flight took off from San Diego and overshot the destination, Minneapolis - St.Paul by 240 km before air traffic control succeeded in reminding the pilot about the destination. The pilots have pleaded that they were seriously discussing the airline policy and overlooked where to land. Cool. Another report says that the pilots were working on their PCs and therefore overlooked their descent duties. Northwest Airlines had not prohibited use of PC by pilots, unlike Delta.
The pilots are from Northwest which was taken over by Delta last year. Air India also recently saw the merger of Indian Airlines with itself. Are the flight crew suffering from post-merger syndrome that distracts them from their duty while on air? Is Airbus 320 equipped with a distractor that enables the pilots to unwind during crucial times?

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