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F-16s 'Prepared' to Shoot Down Errant Northwest Flight
ABC ^ | 10/28/09 | BRIAN ROSS and JUSTIN GRANT

Posted on 10/28/2009 11:06:04 AM PDT by gandalftb

click here to read article


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To: WoofDog123
terrible PR for northwest

Nothing new here.

In all the travels I had to do, which was considerable at one time, Northworst was the only airline to lose my luggage.

I also hated having to have a stop over in the Minneapolis airport, their hub, as it is a crappy facility and I seemed to always have to go from one extreme end of the concourse to the other to get to my connecting flights.

41 posted on 10/28/2009 11:53:59 AM PDT by OldMissileer (Atlas, Titan, Minuteman, PK. Winners of the Cold War)
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To: DoughtyOne
At the speeds these aircraft fly at today, how long does it take to go 150 miles?

About 20 minutes.

Long enough to ask what was going on.

42 posted on 10/28/2009 11:54:03 AM PDT by IYAS9YAS (The townhalls were going great until the oPods showed up.)
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To: gandalftb

“Why haven’t the pilots’ laptops been confiscated so tests can be carried out on them to determine if the pilots are telling the truth?”

Do you really want the FAA to send the FBI out to see what sort of porn they were looking at?


43 posted on 10/28/2009 11:56:23 AM PDT by Tublecane
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To: gandalftb

“They had to intentionally ignore the radio calls, unless they were, in fact, incapacitated.....”

So if they were sleeping, the government can advise pilots not to sleep. If they were chatting online, the government can advise pilots not to chat online. What’s the difference? In any case, they should be fired.


44 posted on 10/28/2009 12:00:26 PM PDT by Tublecane
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To: pallis; All

The story makes it pretty clear they were using some form of an internet system on the laptop to access pilot flight records.

Frankly I want to know why it’s okay for the pilots to do that when the passengers are forbidden to do so because “it could interfere with the plane’s communications.”

It has been known for years all that is a bunch of crap.

I could use a GPS or surf the net in a plane and it will not impact the plane’s communication system at all....

It’s all one big lie.


45 posted on 10/28/2009 12:00:47 PM PDT by rwfromkansas ("Carve your name on hearts, not marble." - C.H. Spurgeon)
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To: gandalftb

Thanks for the info. That’s what I would have thought. I mess around with flight simulator, and it has all kinds of bells and whistles on it, especially on auto pilot.


46 posted on 10/28/2009 12:00:48 PM PDT by b4its2late (Ignorance allows liberalism to prosper.)
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To: DoughtyOne

half an hour or so


47 posted on 10/28/2009 12:01:06 PM PDT by the long march
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To: DoughtyOne

Well the KFI expert was wrong

These yokels most v=certainly should and have lost their tickets


48 posted on 10/28/2009 12:02:53 PM PDT by the long march
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To: b4its2late

I had the same, rather distasteful, thought.


49 posted on 10/28/2009 12:04:25 PM PDT by east1234 (It's the borders stupid! My new environmentalist inspired tagline: cut, kill, dig and drill)
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To: IYAS9YAS

Yes, if you’re on the right radio frequency.


50 posted on 10/28/2009 12:04:55 PM PDT by DoughtyOne (Deficit spending, trade deficits, unsecure mortages, worthless paper... ... not a problem. Oh yeah?)
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To: the long march

My take on it is that these aircraft are probably traveling about 400 mph. I think it would be about 20 minutes or a bit more. 450 mph would be exactly 20 minutes.


51 posted on 10/28/2009 12:06:45 PM PDT by DoughtyOne (Deficit spending, trade deficits, unsecure mortages, worthless paper... ... not a problem. Oh yeah?)
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To: DoughtyOne

assuming no head winds blah blah blah about half an hour ( and certainly 20 mins fits that) still too long and they ignored repeated attempts at contact


52 posted on 10/28/2009 12:08:10 PM PDT by the long march
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To: True Republican Patriot
Damn! I thought taking their licenses and therefore livelihoods was sufficient.
53 posted on 10/28/2009 12:08:49 PM PDT by east1234 (It's the borders stupid! My new environmentalist inspired tagline: cut, kill, dig and drill)
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To: the long march

I don’t think he was. I do think they deserved a two to four month sit down and to lose that pay. I don’t think they should lose their licenses.

He predicted that they would because of all the media hype. They did yesterday, although I don’t know the specific time frame, temporary vs forever.


54 posted on 10/28/2009 12:09:35 PM PDT by DoughtyOne (Deficit spending, trade deficits, unsecure mortages, worthless paper... ... not a problem. Oh yeah?)
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To: east1234

Completely and utterly distasteful thought for sure. But it did cross my mind.


55 posted on 10/28/2009 12:10:16 PM PDT by b4its2late (Ignorance allows liberalism to prosper.)
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To: the long march

This guy does consulting for the airlines. He does training and is an expert witness at trials. He is rated to fly the specific aircraft these pilots were flying, and has flown them. He has something like 30,000 hours. He is ex-military and has a long career in the industry.

I have no reason to think he isn’t qualified to make the assessment he did.

His insights during the interview were quite informative, and his knowledge of the specific aircraft and controls was impressive.


56 posted on 10/28/2009 12:12:40 PM PDT by DoughtyOne (Deficit spending, trade deficits, unsecure mortages, worthless paper... ... not a problem. Oh yeah?)
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To: b4its2late

Thats what I was thinking a well.


57 posted on 10/28/2009 12:13:24 PM PDT by Soothesayer9
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To: autumnraine
Something is really fishy about this though.

Somebody posted yesterday that it could have been a test. After thinking about it I wondered - yes, I know this is real tinfoil hat stuff - but remember when the Russians sprayed some terrorists with gas that put them to sleep? I'm wondering if somehow gas was released in the cockpit that caused the pilots to fall asleep. These are pilots with real clean records. Real tinfoil hat stuff.

58 posted on 10/28/2009 12:16:52 PM PDT by ladyjane
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To: gandalftb

My guess is that something really unusual happened in the last half hour of the flight. Since the cockpit door was locked, it probably wasn’t a terrorist trying to crash the plane. That leaves only one explantation: The pilots saw a UPO, reported it, and the air controllers were discussing it. But the pilots were ordered by the FAA to keep it quiet, and to overshoot the airport long enough to erase the black box recording. It’s so obvious, I don’t know why no one has figured this out.


59 posted on 10/28/2009 12:17:36 PM PDT by giotto
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To: gandalftb; garyb; OldDeckHand
According to that flight track they passed over Sioux Falls. Either Offutt AFB in Nebraska or Ellsworth AFB in South Dakota should have had fighters off that airliners wingtips before that airliner left Nebraska airspace. Otherwise that flight could have been suicided into the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul (where the Republican National Convention was held in 2008).

Ground Zero for a hijacked Northwest Flight 188 ??

Xcel Energy Center

60 posted on 10/28/2009 12:19:06 PM PDT by Aroostook25
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