I'm speechless (well mostly).

Ignore the A/C at your peril. These guys will be lucky if they only lose their medicals.

They make us all look bad.

And I'm really looking forward to the knee jerk reactions from management...

Wow, on their laptops. Ouch.

So, they had their laptops out going through the schedule. And that's the reason why all this happened?? Give me a break. I wish they would have fallen asleep.
Now people think pilots play games and look at porn while flying. Great.

And how many speculators that gave 101 reasons why this incident might have occurred that were inaccurate will come back and say they were wrong. Speculation is wrong in either case. If looking for an apology from one end of the spectrum - you should expect an apology from each.

USMCFLYR

Thank you for posting this information, Plane150. Would you happen to have the source of that information handy? I'd like to pass it along, and it seems to be on several sites, but I can't find an official source.

This is all I can find on the NTSB website at this time:

On Wednesday, October 21, 2009, at 1756 mountain daylight time, an Airbus A320, N03274, operating as Northwest Airlines (NWA) flight 188, became a NORDO (no radio communications) flight at 37,000 feet. The flight was operating as a 14 Code of Federal Air Regulation Part 121 flight from San Diego, California (SAN) to the Minneapolis-St Paul International/Wold-Chamberlain Airport (MSP) with 147 passengers unknown number of crew.

At 1958 central daylight time, the aircraft flew over the destination airport and continued northeast for approximately 150 miles. The MSP center controller reestablished communications at 2014 CDT and the pilot stated "we got distracted and we've overflown MSP. We are overhead Eau Clare, WI (EAU) and would like to make a 180 [degree turn] and do an arrival from over EAU." At 2019, the controller asked the pilot to explain the cause of the situation to which the pilot replied, "just cockpit distraction, that's all I can tell you."

After landing, the crew was interviewed by the FBI and airport police and the crew stated they were in a heated discussion over airline policy and they lost situational awareness.

When earlier I heard that they had their laptops out, I knew exactly what happened.

I won't defend them, because I know the FO, and it will seem biased.

But, many of you did assume that were lying about sleeping and/or didn't belive that they could be awol that long.

Getting immersed in a discussion about the new bidding program is an explanation, not a good one, but it is an explanation.

They will think that if they don't look to see what they were actually doing. (Like you did)

Seriously guys, it doesn't matter why, or what they were doing, what matters is that they are guilty of gross negligence, you can't neglect your job for an 1:20 minutes. No one is perfect, least of all me, but by God, they almost deployed the F-16s! This is a black eye for our industry, and these guys deserve the axe for this, there's no excuses, sleeping, not sleeping, surfing the computer for a schedule tutorial, it's all the same, the outcome was the same, and as professionals, I'm sure they'll accept what's coming to them.

We should all learn from their mistakes, but please, whatever you do, do not try to defend this circumstance. It's already bad enough, without folks trying to justify it.

Damn,

missed the restriction about porn in the cockpit. Thank's for pointing it out Yeager.

Is it porn if it's just 2 XX?

Now I've never been involved in an aircraft incident, but why would they lose their medical? I can see certificate action, but I don't see any way that this could possibly lead to them losing their medical certificate.