NTSB seeks better communications after NWA mishap
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - Federal safety officials said Thursday that better communications procedures are needed in the wake of a fatal Montana plane crash and a Northwest Airlines flight that overshot the Minneapolis airport by more than 100 miles last year.
The National Transportation Safety Board issued its recommendations to the Federal Aviation Administration, which runs the nation's air traffic control system. The report comes after the board investigated what happened on the Northwest flight, whose pilots failed to talk to air traffic controllers for more than an hour, and the Montana crash that killed 14 people.
One recommendation called for controllers to better document their communications with pilots to ensure that critical information gets passed from one controller to another. The board also said controllers should begin transmissions on emergency frequencies by saying "on guard."
Doug Church, a spokesman for the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, said the union declined immediate comment because officials had not had a chance to closely look at the report.
The pilots of Northwest Flight 188 failed to communicate with controllers for about 77 minutes before they discovered they were over Wisconsin. The pilots told investigators they became distracted while working on laptop computers to learn a new scheduling system.
The crew lost contact with air traffic controllers when a controller in Denver told them to change frequencies as they moved from one sector of Denver airspace to another. The handoff came during a shift change, and the plane's crew failed to contact controllers on the new frequency.
Although the NTSB officially ruled Thursday that the probable cause of the incident was "the flight crew's failure to monitor the airplane's radio and instruments," it found room for improvement on the ground.
Both the Denver and Minneapolis control facilities use automated systems to track and hand off flights between controllers more efficiently, but the controllers were not required by FAA procedures to document that the flight crew had been told but failed to contact the next sector, the NTSB report said. Had a standardized procedure been in place, the controller who was coming on duty likely would have quickly discovered that the plane was out of radio contact, the report said.
In the Montana crash, the report said documentation procedure deficiencies likely did not cause the accident but highlighted that controllers were not documenting - and thus not ensuring - that pilots obtained critical weather and safety information for destination airports. There also was a controller shift change during the incident.
The private flight from Oroville, Calif., was destined for Bozeman, Mont., but the pilot requested clearance to divert the Pilatus PC-12/45 to Butte. The plane crashed into a cemetery near the Butte airport's runway. The NTSB has not yet determined why the pilot wanted to divert or why the plane went down. The preliminary accident report indicates weather conditions at both airports were satisfactory.
The National Transportation Safety Board issued its recommendations to the Federal Aviation Administration, which runs the nation's air traffic control system. The report comes after the board investigated what happened on the Northwest flight, whose pilots failed to talk to air traffic controllers for more than an hour, and the Montana crash that killed 14 people.
One recommendation called for controllers to better document their communications with pilots to ensure that critical information gets passed from one controller to another. The board also said controllers should begin transmissions on emergency frequencies by saying "on guard."
Doug Church, a spokesman for the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, said the union declined immediate comment because officials had not had a chance to closely look at the report.
The pilots of Northwest Flight 188 failed to communicate with controllers for about 77 minutes before they discovered they were over Wisconsin. The pilots told investigators they became distracted while working on laptop computers to learn a new scheduling system.
The crew lost contact with air traffic controllers when a controller in Denver told them to change frequencies as they moved from one sector of Denver airspace to another. The handoff came during a shift change, and the plane's crew failed to contact controllers on the new frequency.
Although the NTSB officially ruled Thursday that the probable cause of the incident was "the flight crew's failure to monitor the airplane's radio and instruments," it found room for improvement on the ground.
Both the Denver and Minneapolis control facilities use automated systems to track and hand off flights between controllers more efficiently, but the controllers were not required by FAA procedures to document that the flight crew had been told but failed to contact the next sector, the NTSB report said. Had a standardized procedure been in place, the controller who was coming on duty likely would have quickly discovered that the plane was out of radio contact, the report said.
In the Montana crash, the report said documentation procedure deficiencies likely did not cause the accident but highlighted that controllers were not documenting - and thus not ensuring - that pilots obtained critical weather and safety information for destination airports. There also was a controller shift change during the incident.
The private flight from Oroville, Calif., was destined for Bozeman, Mont., but the pilot requested clearance to divert the Pilatus PC-12/45 to Butte. The plane crashed into a cemetery near the Butte airport's runway. The NTSB has not yet determined why the pilot wanted to divert or why the plane went down. The preliminary accident report indicates weather conditions at both airports were satisfactory.