Oh, well, case closed then

I love how quick some people are to "armchair quarterback" something like this and crucify one of our own. My point was that any number of things could have taken place and an aircraft or a controller missing a radio call is NOT uncommon. They obviously figured out something was wrong and handled the situation in a relatively timely fashion. Would you have rather they saw the airport out the side of the aircraft, just hung it all out and come screaming down from FL210? Sometimes the best course of action is no action, at least immediately. Just take a minute, figure out what you screwed up and fix it. So while it may appear that they weren't doing anything (so of course they must have been sleeping, especially since it's Mesa) the crew may have, in fact, been working through the problem in a calm, collected fashion.

But I may be talking out of my ass since you are clearly privy to the CVR, ATC tapes and whatever other investigative materials are being evaluated.