Secrets of the City

I think this is just a publicty stunt for the new Amelia Earhart movie. She likely overshot her target, too.

Bob Collins has more, including the radar track for the flight, which is either terrifying or hilarious, depending on your mood.

Why were NWA pilots shooting for Target, anyways?

It looks like they turned right around when they realized they made a mistake.

Here’s the link for the flight track that Bob Collins stole from and didn’t give credit to:

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/NWA188/history/20091021/2135Z/KSAN/KMSP

Do we know for sure he didn’t get permission to republish, Aaron?

well that’s reassuring!

Give those pilots mega-bonuses!

including the radar track for the flight, which is either terrifying or hilarious, depending on your mood.

Maybe not so terrifying when you understand that once the error was recognized, air traffic control had to plot their return and approach. Probably at the point where the plane made the circle back toward the Twin Cities.

“It looks like they turned right around when they realized they made a mistake.”

That’s extremely dangerous. Everyone knows that you need to wait until you reach the next exit before you turn around.

Being a bit facetious. I’m something of a kidder.

I am quite confident saying that the pilots didn’t begin their turn back without an AOK from ATC, especially in that heavy-traffic corridor between MSP and ORD. ATC must’ve been saying “WTF?” when they saw the airliner overshoot its destination.

I heard on NPR on my way home that they were actually having a heated argument about Airline policy.

At least that’s what they’re claiming.

True, because really, how heated could that convo get? Unless they were arguing about the peanuts vs. pretzels thing.

Fun!

Do we know for sure he didn’t get permission to republish, Aaron?

Yes. I am friends with two of the people that run the site. Bob Collins used it without permission. His post and the corresponding MPR story have been fixed.

Oh, Aaron, you’re simply flat-out wrong.

I had a grand total of one conversation with a person who “runs the site” and it went like this:

Melanie Sommer, editor: “I’m putting up the graphic of the radar route. Who gets the credit for the graphic?”

Me: “Flightaware.com.”

Now you’re contending that in that time frame, you somehow contacted your “friends who run the site,” and they told you that I didn’t have permission to use the graphic?

Really? That’s what you’re saying?

The names of the people who “run the site” are Ken Paulman, who is the managing editor; Melanie Sommer, who is the assistant managing editor; and Steve Mullis, who is a producer.

Those are the only people in the newsroom yesterday who were on duty a the site. Paulman doesn’t know who you are, Sommer wasn’t talking to you; she was talking to me, and Mullis wasn’t working the story at all and probably wasn’t even aware there WAS a graphic.

Now, it’s true, of course, you know other people at MPR — several in the new media department — but they’re not even located in the newsroom and they weren’t even aware there WAS a graphic.

But if you’d like to reveal the conversation that YOU claim to have had on the subject (you don’t have to use names), I’d love to hear the version.

Oh, dear. Another blogger/MSM catfight brewing. Stand back.

uh, I think he meant he knows the people at flightaware.com

Grab some popcorn, boys. This one could be good.

More details can be read here.

The controllers in Minneapolis ordered the pilot to make a series of unnecessary maneuvers to convince them the pilots were in control of the flight, the source said, adding that fighter jets were poised in Madison, Wisconsin, but were never deployed.

Ouch. There’s gonna be some ’splainin’ to do.

On a lighter note, the best tweet I saw on this was something along the lines of “Great. Now we really ARE flyover country.”

Heh.

This is troubling, noodleman, because at the time they lost contact, they were over Kansas. They were actually under the control of Albuquerque, and then Denver.

Think about this. A jetload of people are heading for a major American city over Kansas, they’re not talking to anyone and STILL the fighters weren’t sent up to take a look? Why not?

Curiously, earlier in the day on Wednesday — FOUR — fighters were sent aloft to intercept a small plane that had gone silent over Indiana and, in fact, DID intercept them. The plane didn’t even have to cross a state line before the military scrambled.

What IF it had been hijacked like 9/11 and it had been used as a missile. This morning people would be asking, “hey, how come the military let a plane fly from Kansas to Minnesota without ever going up and taking a look?”

That question should still be asked.

Oh, and as Collins said on Kathy W’s MPR morning show, why the hell didn’t those fighter jets take off?

I’m just a little confused to what s4xton is actually adding to the conversation. I’ve seen others, myself included, do far less and get accused of derailing the conversation, being caustic, and making comments that are beneath the site.

I guess SOTC doesn’t consider personal attacks and near accusations of plagerism by certain people to negative, figures.

Oh, jinx. While the TC area may not be as “target rich” as DC and NYC for airborne suicide bombers, we do have some places they might want to hit: the MOA, any of the stadiums/arenas (often packed with people on any given night), a couple major oil refineries, etc.

Bob-

I was referring to David McNett and Daniel Baker of FlightAware — I know them though their days with distributed.net. This was many years ago and although I communicate minimally with them now I did drop them a note inquiring about it after you used their imagery without credit.

So if you were so insistent on giving proper credit for the image, why didn’t you do it the first time? The conversation you were referring to is only regarding the actual MPR news story, not the post on your corner of MPR.

Also, why did you delete or otherwise un-approve the comment I posted on News Cut?

Thanks,
-Aaron

JACC, Aaron had established that he was in communication with the people at the original site, and that, according to him, they had not given permission. This is a perfectly allowable comment.

I don’t know what your issue is, and it sounds like you being deliberately provocative and fighty.

Rat, you are the king of dry humor. Love it.

That is pretty creepy how far the airplane got off track. Way to go, air security.

Aaron, you’re right, I didn’t give credit early on on the blog. I was slapping up stuff pretty quickly as I juggled things and my first priority was getting the graphic up to show that, indeed, the plane had gone into Wisconsin. We’re talking five or 10 minutes on a post I’d updated about every 3. Guilty.

Regarding failing to approve your comment. Your comment was picked off as spam as most comments containing links are.

I can assure you that between 2 and 3:30 yesterday, reviewing the comments on News Cut was of no particular importance to me. The comment was neither deleted nor was it UNapproved. Moveable Type simply treated as SPAM and moved it into the “spam comments” section of the interface.

Mel’s request for photo credit information came at 3:17. I answered it at 3:22. You posted the above allegation at 3:23. I obtained the radar plot at 2:58. I put it on the blog at 3:01 p.m. I went back and stamped the graphic at 3:22.

You indicated above that the blog and the news story had been fixed. That’s partially correct. The news story had not been fixed because there was nothing wrong with it that required fixing.

So, yes, the graphic went unattributed for approximately 22 minutes.

I forgive you, Bob.

I think The World forgives you, Bob.

The World doesn’t know Bob as well as I do. Never trust a guy named Bob.

Oh, wait…

So, is everything copicetic now?

Ack. Copacetic.

The World might forgive, but I don’t think he should count on getting a bonus this year.

Well, the airplane still did overshoot MSP by 150 miles, but I think the attribution sniping war might be done.

And now, it appears we’ll have to take the pilots’ for their word on what happened. The cockpit voice recorder is apparently an older model that stores only the last 30 minutes of data.

My latest theory: the pilots were arguing over the public option. Unwillingly, they were drawn toward Canada, and it’s health care system.

Wow, something old in a Northwest Airlines plane. Shocking.

Do you think the Tribune could stop labeling this as breaking news? It happened Wednesday.

If it’s not breaking news, is it broken news?

Really? That’s your Friday offering of funny?

I see they’ve taken my advice.

C’mon guys, isn’t it obvious? I am surprised that the media has not figured this out.

Space aliens abducted the pilots while the autopilot flew the plane for an hour.

Then they put them back in the plane after they implanted secret miniature electronics in their brains.

This happens all the time. The aliens usually get them back in the plane before they overrun their destination. Must have been an extra busy day for them.

Even aliens screw up occasionally.

This is absurd. http://www.startribune.com/local/65778012.html?elr=KArksLckD8EQDUoaEyqyP4O:DW3ckUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aUac8HEaDiaMDCinchO7DU We all have days and days of music on our iPods, but blackboxes can’t keep more than a half an hour of talking? #fail

Space aliens abducted the pilots while the autopilot flew the plane for an hour.

All your pilot are belong to us!

“We all have days and days of music on our iPods, but blackboxes can’t keep more than a half an hour of talking? ”

New models record much longer. However, the capitalists running the industry won’t spring to retrofit the planes voluntarily, and regulation that might require them to do so is, you know, evil and socialist.

Well if they’re still using tape technology or whatever these fossils are made of, no wonder their industry is perennially in the tank. Luddites.

As with military technology, anything new that is added or retrofitted to a passenger aircraft must pass the scrutiny of a host of federal regulators; in the case of switching out legacy blackboxes for something digital, both the FAA and NTSB (if not more) must give their okay.

And unless it becomes a federal requirement, airlines would not be in a rush to switch out gear asap because of cost considerations.

It’s the same thing that happens in Detroit. A new thingimabob that could improve safety/mileage/whatever, that costs $1 per vehicle, isn’t added because to do so could cost a company like GM $15MM in parts to convert millions of vehicles … or many millions more if a conversion required the retooling of the whole production line.

It’s your typical Beancounter computation.

actually kwatt, this wouldn’t be a particular reason for putting the industry in the tank. 99% of the time, a passenger isn’t going to give a crap what kind of recorder is in use. That is, until there’s an incident like this or a crash. Then of course, they’re screaming about it.

nood, the new technology is approved, and some new planes do have it. But when it comes to the bottom line, there’s little incentive to retrofit unless it were to be mandated. (of course, even if there were a mandate, their use would probably be phased in over many years.)

But when it comes to the bottom line, there’s little incentive to retrofit unless it were to be mandated.

I agree, in my #3 & #4 paragraphs.

Can you tell I don’t like the Beancounter mentality?

IIRC at the time of the Air France disappearance, there were stories about upgrading cockpit recorders. Sadly, if an airline has a large fleet (e.g. Delta/Northwest) they are more reluctant to spend, say, the $100 per plane necessary to upgrade or retrofit 1000 airliners. A $100k expense would freak a Beancounter. Heck, one company I work for no longer has a petty cash reserve for incidental expenses. The $500 or so dollars that was kept on hand in-house for emergencies was considered too vital to the company’s bottom line.

I was being about 2% serious.

Is that an asset or a debit, kwatt?