I wonder if they really did have aircraft ready to go. With all the budget constraints I was be concerned there's really no ‘on alert’ units in the heartland. When you think of a situation requiring them to scramble fighters you have a movie plot picture in your mind of pilots just sitting around in a ready room somewhere shooting pool and watching TV, just waiting for the klaxon horn to sound. But in real life, it takes quite a few people to get a fighter off the ground, and it's even more daunting if everyone is home, asleep and must be called in. That could take at least an hour.
Well apparently by the FAA got around to calling NORAD or whoever they do and NORAD alerting the base, I think they were ready rather quick. If it is true that MSP called after they overflew MSP, and contact was made 15 mins later with NW, if you add in the time it took for FAA to call NORAD, NORAD to alert the base and get the pilots out , figure min 5 mins for all that. From what I have heard and understand the pilots were in the F-16’s and getting ready to go when they made contact with the NW plane. So that would mean they had 10 mins or so to get suited up if they were not, and pilots and crew out to the F-16’s and they were ready to go, I think 10 mins from call to ready to go isn’t too bad.
It is fairly common to lose contact with the center. If the controller is overworked and waits a little bit too late to turn you over and you are at the very edge of his area, and perhaps you have a radio that is not up to snuff, you don’t hear the call.
But airline pilots fly the same route over and over and can remember most frequencies without looking at the charts.
The closest I ever came to living like an airline pilot was back in the early 60’s when I had a daughter in the polio hospital at Warm Springs, GA.
For months and months, I flew every single Friday to Columbus, GA, back to GSO that night, back to Columbus Sunday morning and back to Greensboro
Sunday night.
I knew by heart every frequency and within a few miles of when I would be passed on to the next.
That experience makes it even more of a mystery.
When those guys lost Denver, they should have known to go to the next frequency.
I don’t think we have yet heard the truth of what happened on that flight.
Whether they lied or whether they quit flying the airplane, they should be fired. Either one is a reason for termination.