Free Republic

The Federal Aviation Administration on Tuesday revoked the licenses of the two Northwest Airlines pilots who overshot their Minneapolis destination by 150 miles. The pilots — Timothy Cheney of Gig Harbor, Wash., the captain, and Richard Cole of Salem, Ore., the first officer — told safety investigators they were working on their personal laptop computers and lost track of time and place. The pilots, who were out of communications with air traffic controllers for 91 minutes, violated numerous federal safety regulations in the incident last Wednesday night, the FAA said in a statement. The violations included failing to comply with...

MINNEAPOLIS - There was concern at the White House about that wayward Northwest Airlines jet that flew past its scheduled destination in Minneapolis. White House spokesman Nick Shapiro told The Associated Press on Saturday that senior White House officials were alerted by the White House Situation Room and they closely monitored the incident. Shapiro didn't say if President Barack Obama was informed about the wayward plane. Story continues below ↓advertisement | your ad here Northwest Flight 118 was out of communications with air traffic controllers for over an hour Wednesday night. The plane carrying 144 passengers and five crew members...

Many a person has missed their stop on a bus or train at one time or another because they were engrossed in a weighty conversation or a book. But when the pilots of Northwest Airlines flight 188 became distracted it had more serious consequences as they overflew their Minneapolis destination by 150 miles. "They were in a heated discussion over airline policy and they lost situational awareness," the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) explained. When the pilots got their "situational awareness" back they turned the Airbus A320 around and landed it safely on Wednesday evening, apparently without any of...

Northwest jet blows 5 tires on landing in Minn. The Associated Press Aug. 2, 2009 MINNEAPOLIS -- A Northwest Airlines jet blew five tires as it landed at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, closing a runway for a few hours. No injuries were reported in Sunday's incident. Fifteen employees were on the plane, but there were no passengers. The plane landed without crashing or going off the runway, although one runway was blocked for the rest of the afternoon. It's not clear why the tires blew. Metropolitan Airports Commission spokesman Pat Hogan says the pilot reported his brakes were overheating....

A Northwest Airlines jet traveling from Hong Kong to Tokyo last Tuesday suffered a series of equipment and computer malfunctions strikingly similar to those encountered by Air France Flight 447 just before it crashed into the Atlantic Ocean on May 31. The Northwest plane and its passengers, however, emerged unscathed. Details of the harrowing incident – described in a memo by one of the Northwest pilots and confirmed Friday by others familiar with the matter – highlight how cockpit crews can safely cope with something that is almost never supposed to happen: a system breakdown that prevented the crew from...

WATERLOO (KWWL) -- A Boeing 757 made an emergency landing at the Waterloo Regional Airport just after 10:00 a.m Tuesday morning. Northwest flight #335 took off around 8:30 a.m. Iowa time from Detroit due for Los Angeles. The airport was notified that there was smoke in the cockpit and the plane needed to land in Waterloo. The airport was notified when the plane was ten miles out. We have a crew on the scene and will bring you the latest on the KWWL News at Noon.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5ajv_Db-_g

ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- The return of peanuts to the snack menu at Northwest Airlines this month has prompted a spasm of protests from travelers with allergies.. The change comes four months after Northwest merged with Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines and in the midst of a national salmonella outbreak involving Peanut Corporation of America. Georgia, where the company has a plant, is the top peanut-producing state in the country. Northwest began handing out the goobers as snacks on February 1, as Delta has been doing for years. In Minneapolis, where Northwest is based, news of the change has resulted in...

ATLANTA, Oct. 29, 2008 – Delta Air Lines, Inc. (NYSE: DAL) and Northwest Airlines, Inc. today merged, creating a premier global airline with service to nearly all of the world’s major travel markets. The new airline, called Delta and headquartered in Atlanta, will begin its first day as a combined company with a commitment to delivering excellent service to customers in 66 countries and more than 375 worldwide cities – more than any other airline; with a dedicated base of approximately 75,000 worldwide employees; and with a best-in-class cost structure and strong liquidity balance that better positions the company to...

Killer Kowalski Passes Away Walter "Killer" Kowalski passed away early this morning. Kowalski had been taken off life support two weeks ago. He suffered a massive heart attack back on August 8th.

It's said that dead men tell no tales. But a severed arm and hand that emerged from a Wrangell Mountain glacier nine years ago just might -- with the help of two pilots, several forensic and genetic scientists and a raft of state and federal officials. Their combined efforts, detailed at an Anchorage press conference Friday, have determined that the human remains belong to one of the passengers on board a DC-4 airliner that slammed into the side of Mount Sanford 60 years ago last spring. More specifically, they belong to Francis Joseph Van Zandt, a 36-year-old merchant marine from...

Northwest Airlines announced it will waive the fee for a third checked bag by military personnel traveling on NWA and Airlink flights in its continued support of military efforts around the world. Effective Friday, military personnel traveling on orders domestically or internationally may check up to three bags, up to 70 pounds each, at no fee. If military passengers are not on orders, then the regular luggage fees apply. Excess luggage fees will apply if military luggage is over 70 pounds. The decision comes the same day that Delta Airlines announced it would waive all excess baggage fees for active...

Delta to Join Northwest to Form World’s Largest Airline By JEFF BAILEY The boards of Delta Air Lines and Northwest Airlines announced a deal late Monday that will create the world’s biggest airline and probably trigger other airlines to pursue mergers of their own. Directors of the two airlines approved the deal in telephone conference calls. If they approve the deal, shareholders of Northwest would receive 1.25 Delta shares for every Northwest share that they own, a person with direct knowledge of the arrangement said Monday evening. Seven board members from Delta and five from Northwest would join the board...

Delta Air Lines and Northwest Airlines this week are expected to announce a long-anticipated merger, The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday. The merger may to be unveiled as early as Tuesday, The Journal reported, adding that the deal could go through without support of Delta's 6,000 pilots. Delta and its pilots were holding separate talks this weekend on a post-merger contract, while negotiations with Northwest's 5,000 pilots were to be held at a later date, the daily reported. Last week, US authorities gave tentative approval for Delta, Northwest, and four of their international partners to combine their transatlantic routes in...

L.A. INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT, Aug. 17, 2007 (KABC-TV) - A close call at LAX could have had disastrous consequences. Airport officials are reporting two planes came within 200 feet -- perhaps as little as 50 feet -- on the airport runways. There have been near collisions at LAX before, but this one was very close. The FAA says it appears that both the air traffic controller and the pilot of the plane landing made mistakes. The incidents happened around 1 p.m. Thursday afternoon. Officials say a WestJet Boeing 737 coming in from Canada was landing. The plane seats around 132 passengers....

<p>A Northwest Airlines flight bound for Memphis was forced to return to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport on Wednesday because of a bomb threat, though authorities did not believe the bomb was on board the plane, an airport spokeswoman said.</p> <p>Airport police were questioning a man who told a gate agent there was a bomb on Northwest Flight 980 shortly after the plane left Seattle around 12:33 p.m., airport spokeswoman Terri-Ann Betancourt said.</p>

Suspects Began Screaming, Rolling In AisleWhat, exactly, happened onboard a recent Northwest Airlines flight from Minneapolis to Boston? That's the question federal investigators are now contemplating, while a former police officer is being called a hero for his role in subduing two passengers. Boston's WBZ-TV reports Bob Hayden, a retired 28-year veteran police officer and former Lawrence, MA police chief, was a passenger on Northwest Flight 720 this weekend. Hayden says that even before the plane took off, one man started to act strangely -- pacing up and down the aisle, apparently aggravated. A flight attendant forced the man into...

SYRACUSE, N.Y. — Federal investigators are looking into whether baggage handlers at the Syracuse airport caused a 12-inch hole in the fuselage of a Northwest Airlines passenger jet forced to make an emergency landing in Buffalo, N.Y., last month. The Detroit-bound Northwest Airlines Flight 1411 was just 20 minutes into its May 18 journey when the crew heard a loud pop. The Douglas DC-9 experienced a loss of cabin pressure and smoke filled the cockpit. The plane landed safely at the Buffalo airport. A preliminary report by the National Transportation Safety Board does not assess blame or pinpoint the cause...

A Minnesota man who was on the Northwest Airlines flight diverted to Amsterdam Wednesday after air marshals grew suspicious of passengers had prior experience with terrorist plots. Tim Nelson, the flight instructor who first told FBI officials about Al-Qaida operative Zacarias Moussaoui’s presence and behavior at an Eagan flight school in August, 2001, was on the Northwest flight, according to his wife, Jodie. Nelson’s call helped authorities arrest Moussaoui that same August, but the investigation that followed failed to thwart the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Regarding Wednesday’s incident, Mrs. Nelson said her husband specifically noted the crew and air marshals’...

Passengers aboard a Northwest Airlines plane bound for Mumbai and forced to turn back to Amsterdam said air marshals swooped after 12 people began fidgeting with mobile phones and plastic bags, Dutch media said on Thursday. The 12 were arrested on Wednesday after the plane landed at Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport. Prosecution authorities said they were still holding the 12 but would not give their identities or nationalities. "I saw the air marshals run and I knew something was amiss," a 31-year-old businessman aboard the plane told Dutch newspaper Algemeen Dagblad. "Some had beards, others were unshaven, one was wearing a...