Published: November 04, 2009 10:11 pm         

They would have heard me knocking

I’ve probably worked this one little nugget of info into a half-dozen columns – I don’t like to fly. If you recall, the last time I tried travel by air, the flight attendant got locked in the bathroom and the captain wound up body slamming the restroom door open. As we all chuckled in the aftermath, I doubt my fellow passengers were aware my slightly demented giggles were a sign I had just lost my last flying nerve.

It wasn’t just the sight of the captain rushing to the back of the plane, or the sound of that restroom door as it crashed open that convinced me I am an Amtrak girl, it was the way one of the passengers alerted the captain to the problem. He simply walked to the front of the plane and knocked on the cockpit door. (It was a small plane with only one flight attendant, Renee, to pass out peanuts, so somebody had to step forward!) To this day I am amazed and dismayed the cockpit door actually opened.

“Yes?” the captain calmly asked, sticking his head part way out.

“Uh, I hate to bother you, but somebody is stuck in the bathroom and we can’t find Renee,” said the passenger.

Had I been a passenger on Northwest Flight 188, whose pilots recently overshot their destination by 150 miles, you can bet I’d have been beating on that cockpit door within minutes of not arriving at the designated time. I know ETA means “estimated time of arrival,” but even with my limited math skills I would know if we left point A at a certain time, then point B should come along in a timely manner, right? I mean, I like Wisconsin. I used to live there. But I don’t want to be flying over it if I should have landed back in Minneapolis!

According to reports, it was a flight attendant on the intercom who finally got through to the pilots after 90 minutes of attempts by Northwest’s own dispatchers, air traffic controllers in two states and several other pilots flying in the area. National Guard jets were put on alert and the White House was notified. Hey Northwest guys, going incommunicado at 37,000 feet just doesn’t cut it in a post-9/11 world.

OK, so finally realizing their gaffe, the two made a quick u-turn, landed in Minneapolis, apologized profusely, had their licenses revoked pending an investigation, and swore they were neither asleep nor arguing but totally occupied perusing some new airline scheduling software on their laptops. For 90 minutes. Oblivious to all else. Hmm. As my good friend Beauton Gilbow used to say, “I am not believin’ this!” Has anyone ever totally lost 90 minutes of time when they weren’t involved in a “Twilight Zone” episode?

I only can think of two things that might keep a couple of guys so riveted to their laptops for 90 minutes that they noticed absolutely nothing that was going on around them. Firstly, they may have become engrossed in any number of popular, multi-player video games, and secondly, they might have been looking at – well, let’s just go with the video game theory for now. But whether it was scheduling or gaming, wouldn’t it be somehow better to say they fell asleep from their exhaustive routines? That way they could sort of blame it on the airlines and not have to admit they were using personal laptops at all, which is, by the way, against airline policy. The crew did say the two pilots were heard arguing before the flight. Maybe they were fighting about who was going to use their laptop first. And though I don’t know how the logistics of fisticuffs would work out in the cockpit of an airliner, the fighting thing would be a pretty intense diversion.

To be fair, there are a few other things that might require the intense concentration of two people for up to 90 minutes. How about a spirited game of Monopoly played by really strict game rule followers, or addressing Christmas cards to really long lists of friends? Giving each other a “mani” and “pedi” could take that long what with the two of them trying to get their feet into position. Or it could have just been the simplest explanation of all – men don’t like to ask for directions.

Theories will abound, and in the end, it doesn’t really matter what they were doing so much as what could have happened while they were doing it. Should they lose their licenses to fly permanently, or temporarily? An actual passenger on Flight 188 (who apparently wouldn’t have minded waking up in, say, Nova Scotia) said he thought having the pilots’ licenses suspended seemed a little harsh – that perhaps they just need a little time to think about what they did. What are they – 5? I say if pilots choke, you must revoke. And then knock that dang wall down and put up some bulletproof glass between the pilots and passengers. That ought to clear up a few things.



Peck is a local mother and grandmother who works in Enid Public Schools. She can be reached at peckaroonie@yahoo.com.