The Daily Parker

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Another minor navigation error

Technically yesterday's incident happened on a Northwest airplane, but since Delta owns Northwest now, and after last week's error, I'm wondering if the jokes from the 1990s about Delta's navigation abilities might not be coming back in earnest:

Today a Northwest Airlines Airbus A320 flight missed their destination of Minneapolis by 150 miles.

The flight crew said they became engrossed in a conversation about airline policy (and honestly, who couldn't?) and lost track of their location. However, the FAA is investigating if pilot fatigue played any roll in this event.

The flight from San Diego to Minneapolis had 144 passengers onboard and none of them were aware of what happened, until the aircraft was swarmed by police once they finally arrived. The police kept all passengers onboard until they were allowed to question the flight crew.

The Minneapolis Star-Tribune has more:

Military jets had been on standby to track down the jet after it dropped out of radio communication for about 75 minutes.

"When you hear that fighter jets were ready to scramble, that just gets you really mad," said passenger Scott Kennedy.

I certainly hope the next American Airlines flight reaches its proper destination...

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