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Editorial: Pilots who flew 150 miles off course should put laptops away

Nov. 5, 2009

Claire Taylor | Lariat Staff

Two pilots for Northwestern Airlines had their licenses suspended last week after flying 150 miles off course during NW No. 188, a routine commercial flight.

After 91 minutes of no radio contact, several military jets in the area were scrambled and put on high alert, and the White House was notified for fear that the plane had been hijacked.

Fortunately, the only problem was that the two pilots, instead of concentrating on how they were supposed to be flying the plane, were more concerned with their laptops.

Sure, the excitement's a little down once you get up to cruising altitude, but did they really need to be neglecting protocol in order to make sure that their Farmville Farmers had enough grapes and berries for the coming winter?

We live in a time where autopilot comes standard, electronics make many of the most advanced choices, and the less human contact there is with a machine, the more it takes over for itself.

After the massive amount of security measures taken post-Sept. 11, pilots and the rest of the staff on the airplane at not allowed nearly as much freedom as was allowed in the past. Flight attendants and pilots and co-pilots could easily engage in conversation to pass the time and make the trip seem to go a little faster.

But now, with a solid wall separating the cockpit from the rest of the plane, there isn't anything for the pilots to do except to monitor the plane's location every 15 minutes to make sure that they're still on track. After that, what are they going to do? Pilots should have options available to them to keep them alert and focused on what is happening in the cockpit.

Pilots have enough to deal with already. Having laptops in the cockpit only diverts their attention. Additional measures to keep pilots focused on the task at hand, such as more consistent contact with ground control and their flight crew, would keep their attention from being diverted to other, less-safe means of passing the time.

In a story published on Wednesday in the Aero News Network's Web site, North Dakota Sen. Byron Dorgan said he is going to propose a bill in the upcoming week to ban all laptops, MP3 and DVD players, as well as other personal electronic devices, in the cockpit. He expects no opposition to the bill, and other senators have already verbally stated their approval.

Unless those guys were Googling "How to Fly a Plane" or trying to MapQuest directions, they should not have been on their laptops.

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