Something Else to Panic About at 30,000 Feet
When you boarded a plane in the old days, you might have worried about a terrorist storming the cockpit, a mid-air mechnical problem of some sort, or even a drunk pilot passing out behind the controls. Yea, well, there's officially a new danger in the sky: Your pilot could be too busy surfing porn on the web or watching videos on YouTube to realize he's missed your destination.
According to the National Transportation Safety Board, the two Northwest pilots who flew 150 miles past Minneapolis last week (but who turned around once a flight attendant intervened) were so busy using their laptops to "go over flight schedules," they failed to realize they'd missed their destination.
It's possible they were so engrossed with these "flight schedules" that they were out of communication with air traffic control for more than an hour, which turned into a situation so serious that the White House had to be notified and the National Guard was preparing to send out several fighter jets to intercept the plane in the event it had been hijacked. Then again this happened as Northwest finishes up the process of outfitting all of its planes with Wi-Fi. Coincidence? We think not.
