Pilots need to stay focused

One airline used to advertise with the slogan "Fly the Friendly Skies." We would like to see that amended as "Fly the Friendly (But Disciplined) Skies."

You know what we are talking about - the bizarre case of a plane that overflew its landing by 150 miles.

The problem isn't just that the plane missed Minneapolis - the problem is that the two pilots were completely oblivious to everything related to flying a plane for nearly an hour, perhaps more.

There were initial suspicions that the pilots were sleeping during that period, when they were out of communication with air traffic controllers. But the pilots insisted that they weren't goofing off, just engrossed with a flight scheduling program on their laptop computers. They didn't realize that they had missed Minneapolis and were somewhere over Wisconsin until a flight attendant checked in with them about why they hadn't started their overdue descent for landing.

That means they weren't paying attention to flying, and it's probably safe to speculate that most of the flying public assumes that paying attention is something that pilots should be doing.

This case raises all kinds of concerns. Shouldn't flight attendants have better access to their pilots in the sealed cockpit? Shouldn't air traffic controllers have better access to flight attendants if they can't reach pilots? Do we need to keep a video record of all cockpit activity to make sure that it's business as usual when a plane is in the air?

What's unsettling is that with auto-pilot and navigation systems, maybe it really isn't all that uncommon for pilots to be playing cards or computer games, working on their routine for "Last Comic Standing" or just plain "goofing off" as their aircraft cuts through the sky. If that's the case, this incident should be a wakeup call.

Rightfully but unfortunately so, the pilots have lost their licenses. They have the right of appeal, but we suspect that if they took their case to the flying public, they would be permanently grounded.